Grant: Strategic Projects - Group

Without industry, Canadians would not enjoy the prosperity they do. But the cost of this progress has been high: as many as 30,000 chemically contaminated sites around the country, each one a potential threat to human and environmental health. Whether because of poor disposal methods or accidental leaks, the soil at these former industrial sites now contains a toxic soup of chemicals, which can enter the air and the groundwater and put humans at risk. Cleaning up these 'brownfield' sites is not only a Canadian health priority, but a key step towards sustainability: many of these abandoned sites are prime real estate and restoring them provides substantial economic and social benefits to urban areas. However, for the most challenging contaminants, virtually no cheap and effective clean-up techniques are available. In this research, an entirely new remediation technology is being developed that promises to treat some of the most hazardous brownfield sites more thoroughly, quickly, and cost effectively than current techniques. The experiments being conducted at U. Western Ontario will demonstrate - with images, careful experiments, and computer simulations - that this technique offers unique advantages over existing clean up methods. Most notable is that minimal energy is required for clean-up - meaning that site remediation is expected to be both relatively inexpensive and highly sustainable. This innovative research is the joint development of Canadian and International researchers partnering with a Canadian-based clean-up company that will help guide the experiments towards field applications and commercialization. This research represents a new opportunity to reduce health risks and reap economic benefits by site clean-up in Canada. Moreover, it puts Canada at the forefront of a new technology that has the potential to be applicable to sites throughout the industrialized world.