Luminous BioSolutions, a company founded by Athabasca University researcher Dr. Shawn Lewenza, aims to use bacteria to measure dangerous compounds in oilsands tailings
An AU researcher’s innovative work has the potential to remove dangerous compounds from tailings in Alberta’s oilsands.
Dr. Shawn Lewenza, a professor in the Faculty of Science and Technology, has developed his microbiology research into a patent-pending technology that could revolutionize the way oilsands companies monitor contaminants in tailings ponds—and ultimately improve the process of cleaning up that wastewater.
There are approximately 400 million cubic metres of wastewater within 1.5 billion cubic metres of total oilsands tailings, held in facilities near the Athabasca River. The industry is holding this water, which is unsafe to release back into the environment due to high levels of a group of compounds known as naphthenic acids.
As the Government of Alberta works to develop guidelines on how to safely treat and ultimately release that water back into the environment, identifying the concentrations of naphthenic acid in that water is crucial—but is currently quite expensive and time-consuming.
“We have a fast, inexpensive, and relatively simple monitoring method,” Lewenza said. “It’s about supporting the remediation process and confirming their treatment systems work. That gives more confidence about releasing the water.”
Oilsands benefits come with oilsands challenges
Based on the pending patent, which Lewenza expects to be finalized within the next year or two, he has started a company to market this innovative technology: Luminous BioSolutions.
Not only does this technology have the potential to support monitoring during remediation, it also has the potential to improve the daily operations of oilsands mining, which involves managing the same amount of water as the city of Calgary moves within a day.
Jeff Violo, chief operating officer at Luminous BioSolutions, explained that while Alberta’s oilsands have generated a significant amount of wealth and prosperity for the province and the whole country, they do come with significant challenges.
One of those challenges is the wastewater in tailings ponds, where water with high levels of naphthenic acids is stored indefinitely because it would be dangerous to release back into the environment without remediation.
A major hurdle to treating and releasing that water is the ability to test the levels of naphthenic acids quickly and inexpensively. The current gold-standard process is to use a chemistry-based process called mass spectrometry, which can cost more than $500 for a single sample and take several weeks to return a result.
Engineering a solution based on natural processes
Lewenza’s microbiology research with AU has led him to a solution for this problem—developing microbes that can quickly and reliably show the concentrations of naphthenic acids in a water sample.
“We use microbes that were originally isolated from tailings ponds water. We know they’re living with naphthenic acids so they’re able to manage these conditions and have ultimately shown they can degrade these chemicals,” he said.
“From a microbiologist’s perspective, the solution to this environmental problem is contained within the contaminated water itself.”
Lewenza’s team was able to identify the specific genes that are activated in these microbes when exposed to naphthenic acids. In technical terms, he explained that using synthetic biology, the pollutant-induced switch from these genes is fused to reporter genes that causes the biosensor microbes to light up, or “bioluminesce,” in the presence of those compounds.
In this way you can determine not just whether naphthenic acids are present in a sample, but you can also determine the concentration of this complex family of compounds in a water sample.
A quicker, cheaper oilsands monitoring solution
In side-by-side comparisons with high resolution mass spectrometry, which Lewenza has done in collaboration this past year in experimental wetlands treatment systems, the data has shown that the biosensor technology correlates closely to the results from mass spectrometry.
“I think it will be eye-opening about how simple this method is, how fast the turnaround is, and that it is specific and quantitative. This approach will give the industry an understanding of the high-volume monitoring that is now possible,” he said.
In addition to the microbes themselves, Luminous BioSolutions includes an AI database that can quickly analyze and report on the data gleaned from the luminescent microbes.
“If you interrogate it like you would AI, asking questions, it can support the remediation process, learning how to optimize the process, going beyond just the basic reporting,” he said.
Violo said the benefits of this technology, besides the obvious benefit of helping to improve environmental remediation efforts, include improving the financial position of potential clients by getting liabilities off their books, and to highlight the value of the research at AU.
“It's really, really exciting to take this great academic research that's come out of Athabasca University and it's going to get commercialized,” he said.
I think it will be eye-opening about how simple this method is, how fast the turnaround is, and that it is specific and quantitative.
Dr. Shawn Lewenza
Researcher driven to work on big environmental challenge
Lewenza’s research career began when he was working towards getting into medical school, but after doing a microbiology research project in the fourth year of his undergraduate degree, he realized he was much more interested in the research side of medicine than working in hospitals.
He ended up at the University of Calgary to earn his PhD and later joining the faculty there, doing research focused on infectious diseases. One of his goals was to develop and commercialize antibiotics, but he learned that would be a long and difficult process.
Lewenza said taking a role with AU, located so near the Athabasca Oil Sands in northern Alberta, combined with his love of the outdoors and appreciation for the environment, prompted a shift in his research.
“It was about wanting to work on an environmental problem with a bigger scope,” he said. “I was enthusiastic about the possibility of being part of the solution to this kind of problem.”