Environment Sector - Clean Manufacturing Program

BRI's Environment Sector also focuses on the development of new biotechnology applications related to fighting climate change and achieving sustainable industrial development. Researchers in the clean manufacturing program have designed enzymes for sustainable industrial processes, developed a sustainable process to detoxify municipal sludge, investigated the toxicity of the powerful new explosive CL-20, and developed a toolkit of Baeyer-Villiger enzymes which can serve as non-polluting biocatalysts in chemical processes. The Sector has broad-based expertise in the area of sustainable development.

The clean manufacturing multidisciplinary research program aims to use biotechnology to clean up pollutants in Canada's air, waters and soils and to develop, for the industry, green processes that are environmentally friendly and can be sustained on the long term. This solutions-oriented program as well as the excellence of its research team has resulted in partnerships with private industry, other government departments, defence organizations, and university-based researchers, in Canada and around the world.