Welcome to Chemical Engineering at the University of Waterloo

Two Chemical Engineering PhD students have been recognized for their research excellence, earning prestigious awards that support their work in sustainable energy and carbon utilization.

Hao Wang (BASc, 2023) received the Carl Pollock Postgraduate Fellowship in Engineering, valued at $23,000.

“I was thrilled to receive this award because eligibility requires students to have completed their undergraduate degree at Waterloo Engineering,” says Wang. “It feels rewarding to see the hard work I put into my undergraduate studies pay off.”

Supervised by Professor Luis Ricardez-Sandoval, Wang is developing computational methods to design catalysts for reactors that convert carbon dioxide (CO₂) into valuable chemicals.

Her research focuses on catalysts for the reverse water-gas shift reaction, an important carbon utilization process that converts CO₂ hydrogen (H₂) into carbon monoxide (CO) and water. The resulting CO can then be combined with H₂ to produce syngas, a key building block for fuels and chemical products.

Professor Tizazu Mekonnen’s research group has engineered a new method of capturing microplastics in water systems with 90 percent efficiency. The approach is customizable, inexpensive, easy to produce, and uses no toxic ingredients, making it promising for commercial and residential use.

Microplastics are ubiquitous and found in every corner of the planet. The problem is so prevalent that microplastics are also found in our bodies. A study from the National Institute of Health found microplastics can even be found in breast milk and can come from unexpected sources like your laundry.

“Our clothes are mostly a mix of Polyethylene terephthalate (PETs) in the form of polyester and cotton or pure polyester. When you pull out the dryer filter, you can see how much fiber it captures. Those are all microplastics and that filter can capture only a portion of it,” says Professor Tizazu Mekonnen.

Due to the high-speed spinning washing machines release even more microplastics, sending them into wastewater systems.

Researchers in the Department of Chemical Engineering are leveraging their diverse skills to boost food resilience in Ontario.

Dr. Nasser Mohieddin Abukhdeir and Dr. Christian Euler are collaborating with the Ontario Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Agribusiness (OMAFA) and the University of Guelph, to develop an advanced monitoring system that can detect early indicators of plant disease, infection, and stress in greenhouse crops before visible symptoms appear.

That initiative — funded by the governments of Canada and Ontario through the Sustainable Canadian Agricultural Partnership, a federal, provincial and territorial initiative — could yield an important predictive tool for greenhouse production.

A similar spirit of problem‑solving drives another collaborative project, this time with industry partner Corteva Agrisciences and the University of Guelph. The challenge is Eastern Ontario farmers have struggled with the shorter growing season and a narrow window for planting winter wheat — often before soybeans are harvested.