Oil-adsorbing sponge
Oil-adsorbing sponge
The words “oil spill” call to mind images of a large slick, perhaps floating on water. But many spills aren’t like that — the oil instead takes the form of microscopic droplets suspended in wastewater. Cleanup techniques such as booms or skimmers don’t work on these types of spills.
A collaboration between professors CHUL PARK and AMY BILTON has produced a possible solution. Led by former graduate student Pavani Cherukupally, the team developed a sponge that can remove tiny oil droplets from wastewater with more than 90% efficiency, in just 10 minutes.
In developed countries, people expect clean, safe drinking water whenever they turn on their taps, but civil engineering professors BOB ANDREWS, SUSAN ANDREWS and RON HOFMANN know that this cannot be taken for granted. As members of UofT Engineering’s Drinking Water Research Group (DWRG) and the Institute for Water Innovation, they work closely with industry and local municipalities to ensure the integrity of drinking water supplies for decades to come.
Microbes in water and mining
Globally, the mining industry is second only to power generation in water usage. Every year mines use 7 to 9 billion cubic metres of water to extract desired elements from raw ore, resulting in large volumes of tailings — a combined water-particle waste slurry that is stored on site in tailings ponds. Tailings ponds are often black boxes containing largely undescribed bacteria and other microorganisms that thrive on mineral wastes and drive chemical reactions that can lead to acidification, toxicity and oxygen consumption. Uncovering the roles of these microbes offers new opportunities to better manage tailings and prevent potential environmental impacts for mines across all extractive resource industries.
Professor LESLEY WARREN (left) has spent decades working with the extractive resources sector, including Syncrude Canada, Glencore, Vale, Hudbay, Rambler as well as the Ontario Mining Association, NRCan and the Mining Association of Canada to shed light on the drivers of these reactions. As the director of the Lassonde Institute of Mining and the Claudette MacKay-Lassonde Chair in Mineral Engineering, she and her team study the genes and behaviour of the organisms that live in mine waste contexts. Armed with this knowledge, mines could ensure conditions that encourage the growth of organisms that break down toxic compounds, or prevent the growth of organisms that produce those toxic compounds in the first place.
The invisible cleanup crew
Edwards, Canada Research Chair in Anaerobic Biotechnology, was awarded the 2016 Killam Prize in Engineering for her research on the naturally occurring microbes that thrive in contaminated sites. By growing these organisms in the lab and feeding them increasing concentrations of BTEX, Edwards and her team leverage the power of evolution to develop cultures ideally suited to breaking down particular contaminants. When these enriched cultures are added back to the soil, they can speed up the natural process of degradation.
Through a partnership with SiREM, an environmental consulting company, Edwards translates her research from the lab to the marketplace. The company already sells KB-1, a culture Edwards developed for degrading chlorinated compounds such as those formerly used in dry cleaning, to help remediate sites worldwide. They are now looking to do the same with the BTEX cultures.
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