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Canadian graduate students come together during EXFOR & Annual Meeting 2009

The Canadian Pulp and Paper Graduate Student Seminars, co-sponsored by PAPIER (the Canadian Pulp and Paper Network …

The Canadian Pulp and Paper Graduate Student Seminars, co-sponsored by PAPIER (the Canadian Pulp and Paper Network for Innovation and Research) and the PAPTAC (Pulp and Paper Technical Association of Canada) Research Committee, took place all day Feb. 5 at the Fairmont Queen Elizabeth Hotel in Montreal, Que.

Nineteen students from universities across the country presented their research on a number of topics, including cellulosic nanofibres, low-consistency refining, biorefining, and bio-active fabrics.

“It’s nice to see the program is as successful as ever,” seminar moderator Prof. Theo van de Ven of McGill University in Montreal said before leaving the floor to the students.

This is the first year the graduate student seminars portion of the PAPTAC Annual Meeting was given its own day. In the past, the graduate student events took place during the regular Annual Meeting program.

Richard Kerekes, professor emeritus of pulp and paper engineering at the University of British Columbia and PAPIER director, said he had received positive feedback about the graduate student events, especially the PAPIER student poster session that took place on Feb. 4 during EXFOR® and the PAPTAC Annual Meeting. He added that giving the seminars their own day this year allowed the graduate students to take part in the EXFOR® and Annual Meeting events of the previous two days, and also gave industry members the time to learn about the students’ research.

“It brings students to the meeting, and it allows them to attend the events and meet people from the industry,” Kerekes said. “And, having it on a separate day allows people from the industry who are still here to see what the young people are doing.”

Later that night, a banquet dinner was held at Thomson House, a restaurant and pub run by the Post-Graduate Student Society of McGill University. Awards were presented for the three best presentations of the day, as well as the three best posters. The winners are:

For the Alkis Karnis Memorial Prize 2009 (for best poster)

1^st — Ali Soltanzadeh – University of British Columbia

“Mixing Evaluation in Pulp Stock Chests”

 2^nd — Ali Chami Khazraji – Université du Québec à Trois-Rivières

“Physicochemical Study of Factors Inducing Piling in Heatset Offset Lithography”

3^rd — Antti Luukkonen – University of British Columbia

“Understanding Low Consistency Refining of Mechanical Pulps”

For the Henry I. Bolker Prize 2009 (for best seminar)

1^st — Zeinab Hosseinidoust – McGill University

“Cellulose-phage Interactions”

2^nd — Azadeh Bagherzadeh-Namazi – University of Toronto

“Conversion of Pulp Mill Sludge into Activated Carbon”

3^rd — Lijun Wang – University of Toronto

“Characterization of Two Novel Esterases from Streptomyces avermitilis and Rhodopseudomonas palustris”