Nova Chemicals, Polytechnique Montréal partner on chemical engineering pilot program

Nova employees joined Polytechnique Montréal professors and students for their final project presentations. Photo Credit: Nova Chemicals Corp.

Nova Chemicals Corp. and Polytechnique Montréal recently completed a three-month pilot program in which graduate students in the chemical engineering program leveraged Nova’s Bonfire film development platform to simulate novel package designs for the final project of their Polymer Packaging Engineering course.

The Bonfire platform allows users to design and improve complex multilayer films using simulations, which Nova says makes it a good resource for the packaging value chain to help meet sustainability and digitalization goals.

“For students, it was a critical tool that augmented their educational experience and opened a window into what it’s like to be a packaging engineer,” officials with Calgary-based Nova said in a Dec. 15 news release. “They were introduced to various methods of film modeling and saw how it was possible to identify the most promising structures and reduce the number of trials necessary in designing experiments.”

“This partnership enhanced student learning and gave them a useful platform to explore different structures and assess the mechanical, barrier, and seal properties of designed packages,” added Dr. Zahra Kordjazi, research associate in the 3SPack Industrial Research Chair of Professor Abdellah Ajji, also Chair of the chemical engineering department at Polytechnique Montréal.

Nova says the program reinforces its “genScience” initiatives, and follows a recent announcement from Nova stating they’ve committed $600,000 to the “Let’s Talk Science^” program in support of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education across Canada.