Surface water, groundwater, and aquatic ecosystems are vulnerable to negative impacts from natural resource development and transport. Our research seeks to understand these impacts, to mitigate them and to develop more effective procedures for monitoring and remediation of surface waters and groundwater in affected areas. To reduce impacts, it is important to minimize water usage, understand contaminant behaviour (including transport, fate, and toxicity), and to detect and respond to contamination events from various sources. The effective treatment of contaminated waters, and the remediation and/or reclamation of impacted ecosystems, depends upon the continuous improvement of the underpinning of science and technology.
Our areas of focus
Our research is improving our understanding of the various impacts to water sources from oil sands tailings process waters and pipeline leakage of conventional, unconventional and alternative fuels. We study the treatment of contaminated waters to reduce organic and trace metal content of oil sands process waters (OSPW), the generation of hydrogen from process waters (including OSPW and fracking flowback waters), and the reduction of industrial water usage via in situ desalination of brackish groundwater. Specific topics include:
- crude oil, diluted bitumen and biofuel leaks from pipelines impacting both surface water and groundwater
- the transformation and bioavailability of acidic compounds in oil sands pond water
- utilizing wastes from the oil sands industry for the treatment of produced waters with the aid of AI/machine learning
- development of solidifiers for oil spill containment: mesoscale performance evaluation and commercialization
- hydrogen production from aluminum and wastewater, and purifying and storing hydrogen using membranes and metal hydrides
- development of an in situ desalination prototype for brackish groundwater
- remediation of slop oil treatment using paraffinic solvents
Contact information
For information about our team, research, or to work with us, please contact:
James Brydie PhD. P.Geo., Director - Upstream and Environment
james.brydie@nrcan-rncan.gc.ca
(587) 337 2536