DR. BRIENS is Director, R&D, of the Institute for Chemical and Fuels from Alternative Resources (ICFAR) http://www.icfar.ca, which he founded with Dr. Franco Berruti and other colleagues at the University of Western Ontario. He has over 25 years of experience in both academia and industry. His areas of expertise are fluidization and particulate operations, which he has applied, for example, to the development of new reactor technology for the conversion of biomass and heavy oils into valuable products.

Current research projects, supported by Industry and in cooperation with Franco Berruti, address the industrial process used to convert biomass and fossil fuels into valuable fuels and chemicals. For example, the spraying of liquid into a fluidized bed is being studied at the commercial scale, under conditions relevant to the fluid coking process, in collaboration with Syncrude Canada and ExxonMobil.  Another example is the development of a new mobile pyrolyzer for the pyrolysis of agricultural and forestry waste, in partnership with Agri-Therm, a spin-off company that was created to develop technology that he invented with Franco Berruti.  Two other projects involve the upgrading of the pyrolytic bio-oil, in collaboration with Agri-Therm and Imperial Oil.  Current, more fundamental research is focusing on the development of new, advanced multiphase reactors for thermal and catalytic cracking.