TEAM CO2 RECEIVES "2008 AWARD OF INNOVATION"

Congratulations to Dr. Paitoon Tontiwachwuthikul (Dean of Engineering), Dr. Raphael Idem (HTC Industrial Research Chair) and Don Gelowitz (Senior Process Engineer), recipients of the prestigious “Award of Innovation” at the Regina Chamber of Commerce’s Paragon Awards, for their research and development in the field of carbon capture and storage (CCS) technologies. We invite you to read the Leader Post article below for full details.

Carbon engineers receive award

The Leader-Post

Published:  Saturday, April 05, 2008

Three University of Regina engineers who developed several carbon capture and storage (CCS) technologies are the 2008 recipients of the Award of Innovation.

The award was presented to the U of R Process Systems Engineering (PS-Eng) group at the Regina Chamber of Commerce's Paragon Awards banquet on Thursday.

The PS-Eng group, which consists of Raphael Idem, Paitoon Tontiwachwuthikul and Don Gelowitz, received the Award of Innovation for developing a variety of CO2 capture

technologies and processes.

Of particular note is the development of the specially formulated Regina Solvents (RS) series, a group of reactive liquid absorbents developed by the PS-Eng group to remove CO2 from flue gas.

This technology has been tested at a demonstration plant in the U of R's International Test Centre in Regina, as well as at a demonstration plant at Boundary Dam Power Station near Estevan.

These demonstration projects suggest that the U of R technology can be used in scalable, cost-effective, efficient and sustainable post-combustion CO2 capture plants.

The technology is currently being commercialized by Regina-based HTC Purenergy, who recently submitted engineering design plans for two CO2 capture projects in Norway.

In 2006, the research team also received an NSERC Synergy Award from Natural Science and Engineering Research Council.

Ken Loeppky, vice-president of research park operations, Innovation Place, which co-sponsors the award with the University of Regina, believes that recognizing local research is important.

"The research and product development being done by the Process Systems Engineering group is an excellent example of the innovative work being done in this province," said Loeppky, who presented the award.

The Award of Innovation is an annual competition administered through the University-Industry Liaison Office, and sponsored by Innovation Place.

It recognizes faculty members, staff or students of the University of Regina for research work characterized by intellectual achievement, uniqueness and originality. The Award of Innovation includes a monetary award as well as a trophy for each recipient.

© The Leader-Post ( Regina) 2008