Status: This program is closed
Hosted by the National Research Council of Canada's (NRC) Clean Energy Innovation Research Centre, the Materials for Clean Fuels Challenge program advanced research to develop new materials for zero-emission transportation fuels and chemical feedstocks.
Through national collaboration with academic, industry and government partners, the NRC led efforts to discover and develop materials that supported early-stage technologies. This work contributed to innovative solutions for producing clean fuels and chemicals in Canada and helped accelerate progress toward a sustainable energy and chemical sector.
Program highlights
The program focused on high-risk, high-reward technologies to produce fuels and feedstock chemicals from air and water instead of fossil-based sources.
Working with leading experts across Canada, the NRC helped drive breakthroughs in:
- Renewable carbon dioxide conversion
- Hydrogen production technologies
- Artificial intelligence and robotics for materials discovery
Over its 7-year mandate, the program:
- Discovered cost-effective catalysts and membranes for clean fuel and chemical production
- Scaled up and demonstrated carbon dioxide conversion technologies
- Reduced hydrogen production costs
- Published experimental and computational databases and machine learning tools to advance catalyst materials discovery
Areas of focus
The Materials for Clean Fuels Challenge program's areas of focus were:
- Carbon dioxide conversion
- Industrial-scale hydrogen production
- AI-accelerated materials discovery
Project team
The Challenge program team was made up of the following members:
- Martin Tyrawskyj, Acting Program Director, Clean Energy Innovation Research Centre
- Russell Girard, Lead Innovation Investment Advisor, National Program Office
- Parisa Karimi Amirkiasar, Carbon Dioxide Conversion Program Technical Leader, Clean Energy Innovation Research Centre
- Wei Qu, Industrial-scale Hydrogen Production Program Technical Leader, Clean Energy Innovation Research Centre
- Robert Black, AI-accelerated Materials Discovery Program Technical Leader, Clean Energy Innovation Research Centre
