Congratulations to Alex Mary for winning a $84,000 FRQNT Doctoral Research Award
We are pleased to announce that Alex Mary, a doctoral student at the Renewable Materials Research Centre, has been granted a Doctoral Research Award from the Fonds de recherche du Québec – Nature et Technologies (FRQNT), for a value of $84,000 over a period of 4 years, for her thesis project on the «development of biobased adhesives for engineered wood products».
She has distinguished herself for her academic excellence and leadership! Congratulations Alex and we wish you much success in your academic career!
Belonging to the Industrial Research Chair on Eco-responsible Wood Construction (CIRCERB), Alex is working under the direction of Véronic Landry and the co-direction of Pierre Blanchet.
The Fonds de recherche du Québec’s doctoral research scholarships support research excellence by financially assisting the best candidates to undertake or pursue a doctoral research program.
We are very proud of this new excellence and we warmly congratulate Alex Mary for this remarkable distinction!
Project summary: The global building sector accounts for nearly 40% of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, which have a major impact on climate change. One of the strategies to address this issue is to increase the use of wood in building construction. Wood is a renewable resource, sustainably harvested in Quebec, which allows temporary carbon capture in buildings. However, the adhesives used in the design of wood structures are synthetic adhesives that rely heavily on the use of non-renewable materials, such as formaldehyde, which is carcinogenic. Polyurethane adhesives are an alternative to formaldehyde-based adhesives. This project aims to reduce GHG emissions from the construction industry by developing biobased polyurethane adhesives based on proteins, which are known to improve the adhesion of the adhesive to wood. The protein sources selected for this project are industrial co-products:feed residues, microbrewery grains, shrimp shells, and skim milk powder.