Agenda

Conference Proceedings

Here you will find a complete listing of all the 2021 Future Energy Systems Research Symposium presentations.

Sessions will be held through the week, focusing on topical and impactful areas of energy systems research including Alternative Fuels (Monday, Sept 20), Hydrocarbons (Tuesday, Sept 21), Landscapes (Tuesday, Sept 21), Renewables (Wednesday, Sept 22), Energy Storage (Wednesday, Sept 22), and Systems and Futures (Thursday, Sept 23). 

You can now access the symposium presentation agenda and the full symposium proceedings, including abstracts.

Don't forget to register for any session that you would like to attend. 

Find out more below!

Welcome and Orientation

Monday, 20 September 2021, 9:30 - 10:00 MT

Orientation to symposium structure; all participants strongly encouraged to attend

Welcome and launch by Vice President (Research and Innovation) Aminah Robinson Fayek

Alternative Fuels

Monday, 20 September, 2021, 10:00 - 12:00 MT

The world runs on fuel, and the fuels of the future promise to be accessible and low-emission without sacrificing convenience. Hydrogen power, solar fuels, and biofuels could all see widespread use, with research accelerating the development of new production processes and improving the economics of turning biomass waste streams into important contributors to our energy systems.

• Jayranjan Maurya, The techno-economic assessment of alternative materials for hydrogen production via photocatalytic water splitting
• Himanshi Dhawan, Study of physical mixtures of Ir and metal oxide supports for water splitting applications
• Orain Brown, Exploring biomass and heavy oil co-processing enabled by copper catalysis
• Shibashis Das, Developing genetic tools for Methylomicrobium album BG8: a versatile microbial platform for conversion of methane to isoprenoids
• Dagem Haddis, Steam Explosion and Enzymatic Digestion with Sugar Recovery as Pretreatments for Cellulose Nanocrystals Production
• José Carlos Velasco Calderón, Mechanistic investigation into the formation of humins in acid catalyzed liquid phase biomass reactions
• Shaoqing Liu, Electronic Delocalization of Bismuth Oxide Induced by Sulfur Doping for Efficient CO2 Electroreduction to Formate
• Harshitha Rajashekhar, Engineering product selectivity in CO2 photoreduction using bimetallic plasmonic nanoparticles on oxide supports
• Danish Dar, Reactive Distillation for Synthesis of Dimethyl Ether Using Bio-Methanol from a Kraft Pulp Mill

Poster Presentations Marquee Event

Monday, 20 September, 2021, 13:00 - 15:00 MT

Join us on Twitter for the #FESResearchShowcase and see all the diverse work and innovation being accomplished by FES researchers. 

Hydrocarbons

Tuesday, 21 September, 2021, 10:00 - 12:00 MT

Oil and gas play a huge role in providing power to our energy system, and they are expected to continue to serve as valuable resources to Canada and the world as we transition to a net-zero carbon economy. To reach that responsible future, we must analyse our hydrocarbon recovery and refining processes and remain committed to continuous improvement, ensuring the stability and longevity of our energy system now and in the future.

• Osama Younis, An Integrated Assessment of Deep Decarbonization Pathways for the Canadian Oil Sands
• Jerico Fiestas Flores, A Dynamic Economic Analysis of oil sands process-affected water (OSPW) treatment alternatives in Alberta
• Hannah Tollefson, Energy Media: The Politics of Solid-Phase Bitumen
• Menatalla Ahmed, Effects of low-temperature hydrothermal treatment on the properties and removal of fine solids from nonaqueous extraction bitumen
• Camila Santander, Removal of hydrophobic bitumen-coated fine solids from NAE bitumen
• Katelyn Le, Separation and Oxidation Strategies for Developing Novel Asphaltene-Derived Feedstocks
• Xuyang Liu, Surface-modified magnetite nanoparticles for removal of fine solids from nonaqueous extracted bitumen
• Mohammad Yousefi, Bitumen Extraction by Using Non-thermal cyclic solvent process
• Somayeh Khajepour, Real-time monitoring of Oil Sand Pipelines by Wireless Communications
• Young Hoon Lee, Instability of parallel flow of two immiscible liquids in a pore and application to Steam-Assisted Gravity Drainage

Landscapes

Tuesday, 21 September, 2021, 13:00 - 15:00 MT

The earth provides us energy and resources, but our energy systems have large impacts on both society and the environment. Future energy systems must minimize damages, optimize our use of the land, and repair disturbances that have already been created. Carbon dioxide emissions must be captured and stored, remediation and reclamation must be feasibly and efficiently pursued, and people’s connection to the land must be respected.

• Cedar Hanneson, Electrical Resistivity at Mount Meager; Southwestern BC: A Volcanic Geothermal Prospect
• Alireza Rangriz Shokri, Carbon to Electrons: A CO2 Circulation Feasibility Study for Sustainable Geothermal Power Generation at the Aquistore CO2 Storage Site
• Yu Wei, Specific Surface Free Energy of Ice and Clathrate Hydrates
• Irum Zahara, Adsorption kinetics and modeling for removal of heavy metals from wastewater by keratin derived sorbents
• Stephanie Chute-Ibsen, Composition and Optimal Sampling Time for Soil Invertebrates in Reclaimed Coal Mine Sites In Central Alberta
• Wenshuai Yang, Sliver/Tannic acid/Fe3+ functionalized magnetic graphene oxide nanocomposite as ultra-efficient catalyst and disinfectant for wastewater treatment
• Zixiang Wei, Combinative chemical analysis by functional surface nanodroplets
• Maggie Cascadden, Life Cycle Analysis of Novel Constructed Wetlands Water Reclamation Materials
• Thomas Patrick, Water-use implications of low-carbon pathways in the oil sands
• Andrea Miller, Building Futures: Indigenous-Owned Renewable Energy in Alberta and a Just Transition

Renewables

Wednesday, 22 September, 2021, 10:00 - 12:00 MT

To reach a carbon neutral future with energy stability, renewable sources must be integrated throughout our energy system. No single source is expected to emerge as the only provider of green power, but advances in solar, geothermal, and wind power, and more, mean they are all likely to make significant contributions, and new materials, new technologies, and improved computational methods suggest that their widespread adoption could be right around the corner.

• Riley Hooper, Synthetic and structural insights into group 14 materials using solid-state NMR
• Damini Vrushabendrakumar, Crystal facet engineering of 1D metal oxide photocatalysts using chemisorption of divalent cations
• Balaranjan Selvaratnam, Predicting Noncentrosymmetric Quaternary Tellurides Using Machine Learning
• Matthias Lottmann, More Than Hot Air: A 100-Watt Low Temperature Difference Stirling Engine Prototype for Model Validation
• Sadegh Aghapour Aktij, High-Performance Thin Film Composite (TFC) membranes for Energy Harvesting using Pressure Retarded Osmosis (PRO)
• Omex Mohan, Scale up study on pipeline hydro-transportation of agricultural and forestry residues
• Rui He, A semi-supervised GAN method for RUL prediction using failure and suspension histories
• Meng Rao, Improving fault diagnosis performance of deep learning models for wind turbines via speed normalization of vibration signals
• Millawithanachchige Dulika Nayanasiri, Compare Impact of Maximum Power Point Tracking methods of Wind Farms on Turbine Bearings

Energy Storage

Wednesday, 22 September, 2021, 13:00 - 15:00 MT

Modern society requires power to be available on demand, but most renewable energy is inherently intermittent. This challenge can be overcome through improved energy storage. Whether solid state and lithium ion batteries, alternative chemical and mechanical batteries, or even storing light energy as hydrogen or carbon dioxide, energy generation at any scale can be paired with a storage solution that supports society’s needs.

• Matthew Labbe, Atomic Layer Deposition of Transition Metal Oxide Catalysts for Zinc-Air Batteries
• Yingjie He, Hollow Mesoporous Carbon Nanospheres Decorated with Metal Oxide Nanoparticles as Efficient Earth-Abundant Zinc-Air Battery Catalysts
• Nicholas Kissoon, Sustainable High Energy Batteries: Electrochemical Grafting and In-Situ Analysis of Organic Cathode Materials
• Yiling Nan, Electrolyte Design in Li-S battery with anti-reductive solvent shell
• Jasper Woodard, Optimizing Silicon Surface-Binder Interactions for Long Life Lithium-ion Batteries
• Soumitra (Sam) Sarkar, Flywheel Energy Storage Systems for Electric Vehicle Charging Applications
• Manas Kumar Mandal, Using pore former in the anode catalyst layer to increase the performance of the proton exchange membrane water electrolyzer
• Octavio Martinez Perez, Artificial Photosynthesis with a Ruthenium-Rhenium Assembly for Solar CO2 Reduction

Systems and Futures

Thursday, 23 September, 2021, 13:00 - 15:00 MT

Energy systems connect communities, technologies, environments, and economies, through a complex nexus of thoughts, possibilities, and opinions. Emerging modeling tools, new technology that facilitates the energy transition, and an understanding of our society are critical areas of research if we are to successfully adapt our current energy system to meet the demands of our low-carbon future.

• Adrian Velazquez Osorio, Robots; machine learning; and self-run labs. The coming era of scientific discovery
• Saidur Rahman, Two-Stage Stochastic Optimization of a Virtual Power Plant
• Evan Arbuckle, Modelling Regional Hydropower Development with GCAM-Canada
• Sara Eghbali, A Numerical Study on Energy Extraction from Retrofitted Co-axial Wells
• Yuzhuo Li, Graph-theory-inspired unified relationships in power converters
• Fatemeh Bakhtiari Ziabari, Production of renewable biojet fuels
• Minza Haider, Projections of cost of ownership; GHG intensity; and market share of vehicles in the passenger and freight transportation sectors
• Nilusha Welegedara, Analyzing the spatiotemporal variation of urban heat islands with land use changes: A case of Edmonton; Canada
• Sonak Patel, What determines municipal renewable energy development? Insights from a mixed-methods study of municipalities in Alberta
• Matthew Davis, A decarbonization assessment of Canada's electricity generation sector