Wednesday, November 27, 2019 | 2:00-3:00 pm | EME 2111, UBC Okanagan

Ning Yan
Professor
Department of Chemical Engineering and Applied Chemistry,
University of Toronto

Summary of the talk
There is a growing interest in deriving products and functional materials from renewable feedstock to lower our reliance on fossil fuel while reducing environmental impact. My research team has done extensive research in developing light weight biocomposites, bio-based adhesives, resins, polyols and foams using biomass material as the starting material.
By taking advantage of some distinctive properties of nanocrystalline cellulose, nanofibril cellulose, and lately, novel lignin containing nanofibril cellulose, we have developed various functional materials and industrial targeted bio-based composites for applications in automotive, construction, energy storage and electrochemical sensors with excellent performance. An overview and some latest findings from our research activities will be presented.

Dr. Ning Yan holds a Distinguished Professorship in Forest Biomaterials Engineering at the Department of Chemical Engineering and Applied Chemistry in the University of Toronto. She was also an Endowed Chair in Value Added Wood and Composites. Dr. Yan is currently the Director of the Low Carbon Renewable Materials Centre in the Faculty of Applied Science and Engineering. Dr. Yan has more than150 peer-reviewed journal papers, 7 patent applications. She is an international expert on forest biomaterial science and bio-based products and has won numerous prestigious awards for her research excellence including the Early Researcher Award, Connaught Innovation Award, and NSERC Discovery Accelerator Supplements Award. She obtained her Ph.D. from the Department of Chemical Engineering and Applied Chemistry of the University of Toronto in 1997.