April fooled me
A month of unexpected twists and turns
If you're new to my newsletter. Hey, I’m Theo, a 15-year-old based in Montreal who is interested in climate change technology. I’m documenting my growth through this newsletter!
Cellulose production
I’m currently working on a process to reduce the cost of the process called Catalytic Conversion of sugars. This is so that we can produce clean aviation fuel from renewable sources such as biomass.
In order to reduce costs for the production process, I considered eliminating the expensive pretreatment step and finding a more affordable feedstock. Typically, the pretreatment process yields cellulose which is then converted to glucose via enzymatic hydrolysis. However, I discovered cyanobacteria can produce cellulose from CO2 and wastewater as nutrients.
This not only serves as a carbon capture system for aviation fuel but also significantly reduces the cost of the feedstock and the overall process. My next steps involve writing an article and creating a video to showcase this project.
Internship on hold
The Ph.D. student I worked with through March is getting married in India! So all through April my internship was put on hold. This didn’t stop me though from getting my hands on lab equipment. Since I was working on cyanobacteria, I decided to shadow McGill’s cyanobacteria department for a day, learning a ton about my project.
Web Summit Rio cancelled?
Late in March, I was offered an opportunity to speak at Web Summit Rio one of the biggest tech conferences in the world! And then… my trip got cancelled. The reason for this cancellation is that Brazil has laws against minors at conferences, so despite my excitement, the opportunity disappeared in front of me.
Ottawa Concert
Although Rio getting cancelled sucked, it didn’t prevent me from travelling this month. Although a bit closer to home, my orchestra came to Ottowa to perform! It was an exciting experience filled with tons of fun memories.
Chat GPT hackathon
This month I participated in a global hackathon based on Chat GPT for the bottom billion. My team and I decided to focus on the bottom billion in health, obese people. We came up with a chat gpt powered fitness trainer who would you keep you accountable on your fitness goals. This app could generate meal and workout plans for you. Although we didn’t win the challenge it was a great learning experience, building a prototype in Figma and learning how to make it real. You can see our prototype here.
Liquid Air Energy Storage
Electricity production counts for more than 25% of global emissions. To have a sustainable future we need renewables. But renewables (wind and solar) are intermittent, which makes them impossible to adopt fully for our grid.
For this last month, I worked on this problem looking into liquid air energy storage. A process where we liquefy air using extremely cold temperatures. My team and I have been looking into decreasing the cost of this process by using a free-piston magnetic sterling engine.
Next up
Finishing the article on cellulose production
Finishing the video on cellulose production
Finishing the liquid air article, video and website
Getting back to the battery internship
Preparing for exams
More concerts around Montreal
Presenting to Switch Health
See you next time!