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Nanotechnology technology engineering professor Dr. Nasser Mohieddin Abukhdeir is collaborating with government and academic partners to improve agricultural production in Ontario’s greenhouse industry.

In controlled greenhouse environments, growers can manage temperature, humidity, CO₂, and nutrients far more precisely than in open fields, extending productivity well beyond the outdoor season, but greenhouses also intensify the stakes.

Dense plant populations and precisely controlled conditions mean that when disease or pests take hold, they can spread quickly. Current monitoring relies on human scouts who walk the rows every couple of days, but sometimes less frequently, which leaves gaps in response times that can turn into significant losses.

“We are combining computer vision with metabolic models, so each plant gets checked far more frequently than a human scout walking the rows every couple of days,” says Abukhdeir.

University of Waterloo researchers have developed a new 3D-printed electrode design for redox flow batteries, a technology that could help store renewable energy generated by wind and solar farms. Their work shows how carefully designed electrode structures can help battery fluids move more effectively through the system, improving performance and reducing the energy needed to operate the battery.

Led by Nanotechnology Engineering professor Maxime van der Heijden, the research team created porous, 3D-printed electrodes with internal patterns inspired by structures found in nature. These designs helped the battery liquid reach more of the electrode surface while allowing it to flow through the battery with less resistance.

Electrodes are an important part of a battery because they are where the chemical reactions that store and release energy occur. Making electrodes porous, meaning full of tiny open spaces, increases the available surface area and creates more places where these reactions can take place.

Redox flow batteries work differently from the lithium-ion batteries used in phones and electric vehicles. Instead of storing energy inside solid materials, they store energy in liquid electrolytes contained in external tanks. During charging and discharging, the liquids are pumped through a reactor where the electrochemical reactions occur.

Nanotechnology Engineering (NE) Group 26, Airsero, won several awards for their Capstone Design Project. Airsero won the $5K in an Innovation and Entrepreneurship Award at the Norman Esch Pitch Competition.

They also secured the UN Sustainable Development Goals Award within the Nanotechnology Engineering department. At the inception of their project in 2024, the team received a MITACS Accelerate Award that helped with financing the project.

Group members Anthony Keen, Aliasgar Bawangaonwala, and Hamzah Curtay knew they wanted to focus on working with aerogel materials and were eager to do a project that could lead to a start-up.

"Capstone allowed us to go beyond theory —it pushed us into actual engineering problem-solving. Our supervisor, Professor Milad Kamkar, was incredibly supportive and encouraged us to explore various facets of aerogel and material science,” said Keen.

The connections between in-classroom, extracurriculars and co-op are building a truly well-rounded engineering foundation.

It wasn’t a question of whether Nanotechnology Engineering (NE) student Michael would end up at Waterloo Engineering, only which program within the faculty he would be in.

Michael had been sold on engineering as his career path from his childhood days of playing Lego, to the point where he said he wanted to be an engineer during a career presentation in elementary school. After learning about NE and the broad range of applications offered for his future, he was sold on the program.

“I definitely say coming to Waterloo Engineering was the best choice I could have made in terms of propelling my career forward,” says Michael. “It is invaluable to graduate with two years of work experience and co-op is formed in a way which helps you discover who you are in terms of in engineering and being an engineer.”

The members of Capstone Project Team 6 are very passionate about sustainability. Their project aim was to discover solutions to problems that harm the environment. The group chose to concentrate on the critical problem of microplastics in wastewater. Microplastics are not only harmful to delicate ecosystems but also pose a threat to human health, as well as land and marine life.

The project was called MicroSeize. Team members areRyan Ellis, Helen Engelhardt, Alex Matos, and Matthew Scarfo. They developed a scalable methodology for capturing common plastics that other methods cannot retrieve, such as polystyrene and PET microplastics, from wastewater. Most of their testing was conducted on polystyrene because it creates the smallest microplastics.

Nanotechnology Engineering (NE) alumnus Thomas Storwick (Class of 2019) has made Forbes prestigious 30 under 30 list. Storwick co-founded Coastal Carbon with University of Waterloo alumna Kelly Zheng.