D. W. Kirk

B.A.Sc., M.A.Sc., Ph.D., P.Eng.

Room: WB246
Tel.: 416-978-7406
Email: don.kirk@utoronto.ca
Web Site: chem-eng.utoronto.ca/~kirk

Awards

Excellence in Research Faculty Award, Ont. Min. Environment

Memberships

Professional Engineers of Ontario
Electrochemical Society
National Association of Corrosion Engineers
Canadian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy
American Society of Materials
Canadian Standards Association

Research Interests

Electrochemical and Environmental Engineering
Solid and Liquid Waste Research: There is increasing economic and public pressure on industries to reduce the amount of waste being sent to landfill. The technology for treating these complex wastes does not often exist and requires fundamental research to characterize the chemical and physical properties of the waste before suitable unit operations can be designed. Wastes that have been studied include flyash, steel flue dusts, sulphite scrubbing solids and aqueous phenolic and cyanide effluents.

Hydrometallurgical research involves the study of extraction, separation and recovery of metal values from ores, by-products and wastes. The driving force for this work is the increasing emphasis, because of environmental regulations, on waste reduction and recycling. Electroorganic work requires the activation of weakly or nonpolar species through the use of imposed potential fields and relies on the use of specific very high surface area electrodes, typically in a packed bed configuration for uniform potential distribution. Electrochemical oxidations often mirror organic degradation processes in the environment but have the advantage of much more rapid initiation, ease of control and immunity to bacteriocidal action.

With all electrochemical and environmental research, the electrolyte-electrode interface is of fundamental importance, since this is the region of electron transfer. Significant advances to electrochemical processing are being made through the use of chemically modified electrode surfaces, the control of electrode composition and by the design of the surface structure and configuration. Thus the research conducted is multidisciplinary and combines engineering with fundamental science.

Selected Publications

Wang R.Y, Kirk D.W. and Zhang G.X. “Characterization and Growth Mechanism of Filamentous Zinc Electrodeposits” Electrochemical Society Transactions 2(16), 19, 2007

R.J. Gilliam, D.W. Kirk, and S.J. Thorpe “ Dependence of Catalytic Activity on Electrode Size” Electrochem. Communications 9, 2276-2279, 2007

R.J. Gilliam,S.J. Thorpe and D.W. Kirk “A Nucleation and Growth Study of Gold Nanowires and nanotubes in polymeric Membranes” J. Applied Electrochem. 37 233-239, 2007

Kirk D.W. and Jia C.Q. “Activated Carbon in Double Layer Capacitors” ECS Transactions, Electrochemical Capacitors and Hybrid Power Sources 2008 16[1] 49-56, 2008

Kostowskyj, M.A., Gilliam, R.J., Kirk, D.W., Thorpe, S.J. "Silver Nanowire Catalysts for Alkaline Fuel Cells" International Journal of Hydrogen Energy 33 (20), pp. 5773-5778, 2008

Cao L., Yan P., Sun K. ,Kirk D.W. “Gold 3D brush nanoelectrode ensembles with enlarged active area for the direct voltammetry of daunorubicin” Electroanalysis 21 [10]
1183-1188, 2009

Graydon J., Zhang X., Kirk D., and Jia C. “Sorption and Stability of Mercury on Activated Carbon for Emission Control” J. of Hazardous Materials 2009 (in press)