Winners of NSERC André Hamer Postgraduate Prizes

Nadine Borduas
Organic Chemistry – University of Toronto

As countries around the world explore new ways to lower their impact on the environment, Nadine Borduas is doing her part to clean up chemistry and make science a little greener. Borduas, who is now a PhD student at the University of Toronto, is pursuing her interest in organic chemistry as an environmentally friendly branch of science research.

Borduas’ interest is in total synthesis, the creation of a complex organic product by executing chemical reactions from simpler pieces. Most organic chemistry is petroleum-based and as the world’s limited supply is depleted, the need for new base material, such as carbon dioxide and starch, will become necessary. Borduas intends to demonstrate the usefulness and efficiency of new, but under-utilized, forming reactions that will aid in the production of biological products.

To this day, pharmaceutical industries rely on wasteful procedures to synthesize their drugs as quickly as possible. They generate toxic metal wastes, harmful emissions and dangerous contaminated equipment. To address these problems, green chemistry has emerged as an environmentally friendly and energy efficient approach to science. Green chemistry includes using renewable starting material, developing environmentally friendly processes and reducing chemical wastes.

The developments that result from Borduas’ research will benefit all fields of science, but particularly those concerned with the environment. Her work will provide new reliable tools for chemists to use when conducting synthesis of molecules for a biological product and help to advance the entire field of green chemistry.

Delphine Bouilly
Physics – Université de Montréal

The scientists and engineers who spur on the continuous evolution of computers and other electronic devices are on the verge of creating new generations of products based on nanotechnology. Delphine Bouilly, a doctoral student in physics at the Université de Montréal, is adding her stamp to these developments by studying the electrical properties of double-walled carbon nanotubes. These cylindrical molecules are made from two coaxial layers of graphite one atom thick and are potential materials for the next wave of transistors.

As part of research conducted for her master’s studies, Bouilly discovered that the electrical responses of double-walled carbon nanotubes show specific signatures depending on their configuration, information she is building on during her doctoral research. Working in a group that includes chemists, physicists and engineers, and using state-of-the-art fabrication facilities, she will test the properties of numerous configurations of nanotubes. Understanding and controlling interaction between the two walls of the nanotube and between the nanotube and the outside environment, a little-studied area to date, can lead to a number of high-tech developments.

Electronics based on nanostructures and self-assembling molecules hold particular promise for so-called “intelligent” devices, with potential applications in biomedical devices, chemical sensors and solar collectors.