Innovation gets charged up at UWaterloo’s battery research centre
Batteries are a hot commodity right now: Demand is surging as the market for electric vehicles and other battery-powered tech steadily grows. The most common rechargeable batteries, which power everything from EVs to smartphones, are made with lithium — but extracting the element exacts a huge toll on the environment. And once those batteries run out of juice, there aren’t many viable answers to the question of what to do with the waste. While recycling is an option, it’s costly and hard to scale.
Luckily, innovations in this realm are multiplying in tandem with increasing demand for batteries. Bolstered by nearly $5 million in combined funding from the Canadian Foundation for Innovation and the University of Waterloo, the Ontario Battery and Electrochemistry research Centre (OBEC) at the university will work to accelerate the development of innovative tech.
According to Linda Nazar, the Canada Research Chair in Solid State Energy Materials and one of the centre’s lead researchers, OBEC is exploring a range of options. “There’s no silver bullet,” she says. The ideal solution would be “low cost, inherently safe, sustainable and high in energy density with great power capabilities and long cycle life. And you can’t hit all of those targets with one technology — at least not yet.”
That means Nazar and her colleagues are digging into everything from sodium ion batteries (popular in the ’80s, this rechargeable tech uses sodium to carry a charge) to metal air technologies (where power is generated when metals react with oxygen), as well as overseeing a fabrication facility. “Literally everything is on the menu,” she says. Nazar also notes that the centre’s location is ideal because of its proximity to both automotive manufacturers and startups.
While OBEC homes in on the cells themselves, startups across the country are working on other innovations to help optimize batteries. For instance, Montreal-based startup FTEX is focusing on tech to help batteries power motors more efficiently. The company has developed an inverter that uses gallium nitride, a semiconductor material that conducts energy more efficiently than silicon. An algorithm controls and reduces the amount of energy used by a vehicle, preserving battery life and saving electricity. For now, FTEX’s technology is used in smaller modes of transport (like e-bikes and scooters), but Ramee Mossa, FTEX’s co-founder and CEO, says that there are plans to eventually scale up to motorcycles and cars.
It stands to reason that the country is seeing such promising battery-related innovation, says OBEC’s Nazar: “It’s an area where Canada is poised to make a tremendous contribution. We have a fair amount of the natural resources needed for a lot of these systems, a highly educated population, and the combination of that and the science and technology should be instrumental in pushing this forward.”
Quebec’s agtech incubator takes root
Cutting-edge labs, tech workshops, and access to drones and other infrastructure will be among the highlights of Zone Agtech’s new innovation centre in the Montreal suburb of L’Assomption, which is funded by a $42-million investment from the government of Quebec. Zone Agtech is hoping to help startups accelerate their development of new solutions to agricultural problems.
New Ontario budget supports innovation centres
The government of Ontario dropped its annual budget, which contains investments to the innovation sector. An additional $100 million will be added to the Invest Ontario Fund and there are plans to create a $12-million Health Technology Accelerator Fund. Doug Ford’s government will also launch a new Regional Innovation Centre in Barrie to further expand innovation and economic growth. It will be the 18th Regional Innovation Centre in the province.
IBM sets its sights on Quebec’s DeepSight
A new partnership between DeepSight/Réalité Augmentée and IBM will facilitate the integration of the Quebec-based startup’s AR-powered learning platform and the computing giant’s AI technology to create real-time training and guidance for workers. DeepSight harnesses augmented reality — interactive tech that superimposes digital content on real-life surroundings — to provide workplace guidance by letting users engage with holographic simulations of potential scenarios and/or equipment.
By the numbers
$4.5 billion: The amount that Ontario school boards are suing social media platforms Snapchat, TikTok and Meta for in a class-action lawsuit. The school boards allege the social platforms are deliberately harming students.
$2 billion-plus: How much big pharmaceutical firm AstraZeneca is shelling out to buy Hamiltonbased biopharmaceutical precision oncology company Fusion Pharmaceuticals.
$16 million: The amount the federal and Quebec governments are investing to establish an AI computing cluster in Laval, Que.