Farm and Forestry Fueling Green Car of the Future

Dr. Mohini Sain demonstrates a newly discovered bioplastic made from corn starch.

Dr. Mohini Sain’s interest in developing an environmentally friendly automobile began when he was a student at St. Xavier’s College in Calcutta, India. At the time, Dr. Sain commuted from school to home via public transit that gave him plenty of time to observe just how much pollution vehicles were producing.

Fast-forward thirty years. Dr. Sain is now heading an $18 million research project that aims to develop the use of renewable resources to produce automotive materials and parts. The Ontario BioCar Initiative, as it’s called, involves scientists at four Ontario universities and a number of industry partners.

“What we use to manufacture vehicles now is iron, nickel, copper and oil, all non-renewable resources,” explains Dr. Sain, a chemical engineer and director of the Centre for Biocomposites and Biomaterials Processing at the University of Toronto, and adjunct professor, Department of Plant Agriculture, University of Guelph. “The goal of our project is to transform renewable agricultural and forest products and by-products into high-tech auto parts.” 

“In the process, we aim to improve profitability in the agriculture and forestry industries, reduce the amount of energy used in parts production, reduce greenhouse gas emissions – and create a competitive edge for our auto industry.”

It’s a tall order. To be successful, the parts must be lighter, stronger and cheaper, as well as more environmentally friendly, than those currently available. But Dr. Sain is confident that at the end of the four-year project there will be a number of prototype parts that fit the bill.

“We know the commercial potential exists,” he says. “Within five years we could see renewable biomass materials making up to 25 per cent of a vehicle and eventually, we’ll be able to make everything from door panels and bumpers to consoles and dash boards.”

With help from a $5.9 million grant from the McGuinty government’s Ontario Research Fund, a program of the Ministry of Research and Innovation, researchers at the universities of Guelph, Toronto, Waterloo and Windsor will tackle everything from improving yields per acre for hemp, wheat, corn, soybeans and canola, all crops grown in Ontario, to developing improved processing technologies for fibre harvesting, treatment and separation. They’ll also develop bio-chemicals, bio-plastics and bio-composites. And they’ll design auto parts that combine the advantages of metals and biomaterials and predict the design performance of bio-materials in assembled automobiles.

“To be successful in research you have to have a vision and you have to have partners who believe in the value of innovation and are prepared to invest in it,” says Dr. Sain. “We’ve got that winning combination in Ontario.”

William Harney, Director of Engineering and Development at Decoma International, agrees. Decoma is one of the largest exterior automotive parts suppliers in the world and is keenly interested in Dr. Sain’s work.

“To be able to use more renewable resources in innovative parts and systems will give us – and the Ontario’s parts industry – a real competitive advantage down the road,” says Mr. Harney.