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ArboraNano — the Canadian Forest NanoProducts Network receives funding from federal government

FPInnovations announces that ArboraNano — the Canadian Forest NanoProducts Network has been selected as one of four new business-led networks funded by the Government of Canada.

ArboraNano will receive $8.9 million over four years. Announced in the 2007 budget, the goal of the Business-led Networks of Centres of Excellence program is to fund large-scale, collaborative networks led by the private sector and focused on specific business research needs.

ArboraNano, a research and development network bringing together nanotechnology and forest sector expertise, will strive to create a new Canadian bio-economy based on innovative, highly-engineered, carbon-neutral products containing nanomaterials. Wood and wood fibre from Canada’s vast forests can converted into high-value nanomaterials and intermediates, and these can be used to produce a variety of unique advanced products.

These nanomaterials and the products developed from them will have applications in many industrial sectors, including aerospace, automotive, medical devices, chemicals, composites, cosmetics, pharmaceutical, coatings, and forest products. The ArboraNano network will involve the collaboration of Canadian scientists and engineers from these industries, as well as from university and government laboratories. It will provide the means to combine fundamental and applied research with private sector innovation in order to take advantage of Canada’s vast sustainable natural forest resource.

Dave McDonald, vice-president, pulp and paper, FPInnovations says that “many of the new products will be based on a plant-derived nanomaterial — nanocrystalline cellulose (NCC) — while others will use other nanomaterials in the development of new forest products. NCC is a nanomaterial that has yet to establish a presence in the marketplace but that holds great promise. Research by FPInnovations scientists has shown that NCC has many remarkable properties, some of which are unique and others that are comparable to those of other well-known nanomaterials.”