Each year, the MSSI Innovation Fund provides support to McGill faculty members to accelerate the development of innovations or processes in the field of sustainability research. This year's projects from the faculties of Engineering and Medicine were selected for their potential-for-impact on sustainability challenges. Read more about this year’s projects below.
The next Innovation Fund is scheduled for Winter 2022. The MSSI also offers support to McGill researchers through the Ideas and SSH-Ideas Fund, more information is available on the MSSI website.
Developing a near real-time sensor network for urban air pollution
Scott Weichenthal (Department of Epidemiology, Biostatistics and Occupational Health) & Pedro Pinheiro (Deep Genomics)
Air pollution and noise are important public health issues in urban environments. This project will develop and test a new prototype device capable of estimating near real-time levels of noise and urban air pollution using deep learning models combined with images and audio data (i.e. city sounds). Ultimately, the goal is to develop a new low-cost method of estimating high-resolution population exposures to environmental pollutants.
Cellulose-waste derived material for targeted removal of microplastics and nanoplastics from water
Nathalie Tufenkji & Mathieu Lapointe (Department of Chemical Engineering)
This project uses cellulose-based wastes – recovered from agriculture and paper industries – to fabricate materials that can be used to improve water treatment performance in a sustainable manner. The goal is to strategically modify the cellulose-based wastes so as to optimize the capture of microplastic and nanoplastic contaminants, as well as phosphorus, that are present in wastewaters.
