Canada spends $2M on clean tech research

The government of Canada is putting CDN$2 million into commercializing green technology research in Cape Breton, Nova Scotia.

The Verschuren Centre at Cape Breton University is getting a $1 million grant for large-scale equipment and two startup companies are getting loans of $500,000 each to make a biodegradable fertilizer coating and a soap-like product with a variety of uses.

The funding will help "catapult" the work of researchers out of the laboratory and into the business world, said Gudie Hutchings, Canada's Rural Economic Development Minister and the minister responsible for the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency.

"The two proponents are just exciting young entrepreneurs that have chosen to come here, work with the Verschuren Centre and now have their wings to fly and will be doing incredible work," she said Tuesday in Sydney.

The Verschuren Centre will use the money to buy a stainless steel chemical reactor vessel that will help new companies achieve commercial-scale production, said the centre's CEO Beth Mason.

"Typically, clients come and they produce product at 250 [millilitres], which is a flask," she said. "We scale them up to 100 litres, which is a small vessel, maybe five feet tall, then 1,000 [litres], which is about 15 to 20 feet tall. This investment gives us 10,000-litre and 15,000-litre capacity, so you can imagine the magnitude of that size. That's 36 feet tall."

Mason said there is only one other chemical reactor with that capacity available to small companies in Canada, so the federal money will help spark new businesses in the Atlantic region.

Cotex Technologies, an Indian company that is opening a new production facility in North Sydney, is getting ready to start field trials of a plant-based coating material that allows fertilizer to be slowly released into soil over time.

The company says that helps reduce greenhouse gas emissions and eliminates leftover microplastics.

Find out more about CRFs in New AG International’s e-book on Slow- Controlled-Release and Stabilized Fertilizers, here.