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NOVA Chemicals and Polytechnique Montréal announce completion of pilot program

NOVA Chemicals and Polytechnique Montréal announce completion of pilot program

CALGARY — NOVA Chemicals and Polytechnique Montréal recently completed a three-month pilot program that brought NOVA Chemicals’ proprietary BONFIRE® film development platform into the classroom. Graduate students in the Chemical Engineering program leveraged the platform to simulate novel package designs for the final project of their Polymer Packaging Engineering course.

The BONFIRE platform allows users to design complex multilayer films using simulations instead of costly experiments. These features reportedly make it an ideal resource for the packaging value chain to help meet sustainability and digitalization goals, accelerating a pathway toward a true circular economy for plastics. 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. 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.

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, helped coordinate the program with NOVA Chemicals and saw how it impacted students: “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.” Students demonstrated strong enthusiasm for building unique structures through lessons learned from their course and the BONFIRE platform library and modules.

This program tries to reinforce NOVA Chemicals’ genScience initiatives, which are focused on sparking passion, innovation, and discovery in the next generation of STEM employees.

NOVA Chemicals says they plan to continue inspiring future packaging designers by bringing the BONFIRE platform to more schools across North America. Students gain a working knowledge of resources they’ll need in their careers while providing valuable feedback on the platform’s usability.