Thank you for the invitation and the opportunity to speak today.
Polymers, which make up plastics, can be modified, tuned and functionalized to provide improved mechanical strength, better adhesion or even impart electrical conductivity. The research in the developing of new polymers has the potential to improve the lives of all Canadians while also providing an economic advantage to Canadian industry.
For example, we can build more fuel-efficient airplanes using lighter polymer composites, reduce packaging size using thinner but more durable polymers, and manufacture safer electric vehicle batteries using polymer electrolytes.
New polymers are an important area of research for current and next generation products.
However, with new polymers come new challenges. Seemingly small changes in the polymer structure can influence how this polymer will degrade in our environment and how it needs to be recycled as well as how the breakdown products will affect human health and how the corresponding microplastics will engage with our environment. Without simultaneously developing new strategies to protect our society, these new materials can become a significant problem that we don't even see coming.
When new polymers are developed, we usually produce them on an industrial scale and then throw them away, so they end up in the environment. Only afterwards do we discover how toxic they are.
This is the problem we are now facing with polyfluoroalkyl substances, like PFAS, which are breakdown products from Teflon and other fluorinated products. It's important for polymer scientists and polymer manufacturing to engage with toxicologists at the design phase, not when it's already everywhere in our environment.
For example, at the University of Ottawa, we are rolling out a program that brings together toxicology experts and polymer experts, biologists, chemists and engineers to develop more sustainable polymers from the start. We are developing new high-throughput toxicology assessment tools to reduce the time needed to evaluate toxic components of polymers, which, in some cases, can hopefully replace the need for animal testing and speed up the process.
The goal is to develop new polymers for new applications deemed non-toxic from the start.
We're just one research group, but we hope our work inspires similar initiatives across the country and the world. Universities are focused on shaping future industry leaders and the way they think. I haven't met a student who isn't worried about plastic pollution and doesn't want to work on solving this problem.
We provide opportunities for these growing minds to do research and develop solutions for problems we face now and will face in the future. The strength of academic research is the freedom to explore and develop new approaches and new directions where the only focus is understanding the world around us and what makes it better. Academic research is the canary in the mine, providing early warning for things to come while also working on possible solutions.
Universities are developing new materials, technologies, systems and processes that sometimes go against established standards but could open up new opportunities.
It is from academia that true disruptive change will originate, because we are not in the business of selling products or pleasing shareholders but of simply developing better alternatives. We often work with Canadian industry to help them innovate and solve problems, but we also spin off our own companies when solutions don't fit existing industries.
The role of academia is to look to the future. We shape the leaders of tomorrow, we anticipate social problems that could arise and we come up with disruptive solutions with the potential to change the path we're on.
We aim to solve the problems of today and those of tomorrow.
Thank you.