Dalhousie Cleantech Project Receives Funding Support For Wearable, Flexible Solar Cells

Dr. Ghada Koleilat at Dalhousie’s faculty of engineering is at the cutting edge of her field, researching and innovating smart fabric technology. Her vision imagines an environment where the electronic world is integrated for example in your coat, giving you an update on the forecasted weather, or in your curtains in the living room, closing them, when you ask them to do so. Her research is incorporating carbon nanotube technology into fabrics and was one of three clean-tech projects highlighted in a $5-million funding announcement in February 2018 at the Dalhousie engineering school in Halifax. “We can integrate them into fabric in your house, curtains, sofas, everything would be seamlessly integrated into whatever you want it to be,” Koleilat said after the announcement. “You can spray-coat them on any surface, you can print them, you can spin-coat them, you can deposit them in a million different ways to conform to any shape that you want.” The provincial government’s Research Nova Scotia Trust contributed $2 million with the remaining $3 million leveraged from the federal government and private donors.The other funded Dalhousie project included 3D-printing research and St. Francis Xavier University was the third recipient. Dr. Koleilat said that combined, the three projects are expected to create about 69 jobs for research graduates, interns, lab technicians and project managers. Dal’s 3D printing project, is led by Paul Bishop of Dalhousie’s mechanical engineering department, and will serve as a resource for Nova Scotia companies that want to develop this technology, which is also known as additive manufacturing. It transforms computer designs into physical products such as aerospace structures and custom biomedical implants. To read the full article in The Chronicle Herald, click here. Photo by rawpixel.com on Unsplash
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