January | janvier 2012
Canadian Chemical News | L’Actualité chimique canadienne A Magazine of the Chemical Institute of Canada and its Constituent Societies | Une magazine de l’institut de chimie du canada et ses sociétés constituantes
The science and politics of fracking Chemistry of the Creative
Toxic gold www.accn.ca
Chemical
Waterloo AD
Table of Contents
January | janvier Vol.64, No./No 1
Features
make a roof for the people, and the pe chemistry down the street with resin for a roof, a has magnesium in it, and sulphur, a walk down the street with resin in th resins are always falling from the sky and the birds make a people in the sk of the resin, and the resin is composed it composes the sky, and the people w the street are the strings of resins, and c their hair with their arms, with new umbrellas, the people are the birds of r their landings in the air like people f are uncommon, like people committ pulsion of landings, the resins coming Fracking Furor Chemical Bard driven out of countr them like people Tapping into petroleum reserves using Adam Dickinson of Brock University by resins writes poetry or thatthat have discovered resins hydraulic fracturing has sparked public reveals the sublime in the countertops fears about potential groundwater side of chemistry. of suburbs, and peo contamination. Tyler Irving down the Bystreet with resins for hair, w By D’Arcy Jenish committed to colour, with the bonds b the birds circling, and people walking with hunched shoulders so as not to loo business call the resins by name, call the resins of the birds, the people, circling and lo
Chemical Engineering
14
20
Departments
24
All That Glitters
University of Victoria’s Kevin Telmer is helping implement safe gold mining methods following an epidemic of lead poisoning in Nigeria. By Roberta Staley
5
From the Editor
7
uest Column G By David Sparling
8
hemical News C By Tyler Irving
18
Survey Special!
28
Society News
30
ChemFusion By Joe Schwarcz
january 2012 CAnadian Chemical News 3
FRom the editor
Executive Director
Roland Andersson, MCIC
ACTING EDITOR
Roberta Staley
Editor (on leave)
Jodi Di Menna
news editor
Tyler Irving, MCIC
contributing editors
Peter Calamai Tyler Hamilton Tim Lougheed
art direction & Graphic Design
Krista Leroux Kelly Turner
Society NEws
Bobbijo Sawchyn, MCIC Gale Thirlwall
Marketing Manager
Bernadette Dacey
Marketing Coordinator
Luke Andersson
Circulation
Michelle Moulton
Finance and Administration Director
Joan Kingston
Membership Services Coordinator
Angie Moulton
Editorial Board
Joe Schwarcz, MCIC, chair Milena Sejnoha, MCIC Bernard West, MCIC
Editorial Office 130 Slater Street, Suite 550 Ottawa, ON K1P 6E2 T. 613-232-6252 | F. 613-232-5862 magazine@accn.ca | www.accn.ca
Advertising advertising@gordongroup.com 613-288-5363
Subscription Rates Go to www.accn.ca to subscribe or to purchase single issues. The individual non-CIC member subscription price for 2012 is $100 CDN. The institutional subscription price for 2012 is $150 CDN. Single copies can be purchased for $10. ACCN (Canadian Chemical News/ L’Actualité chimique canadienne) is published 10 times a year by the Chemical Institute of Canada, www.cheminst.ca Recommended by the Chemical Institute of Canada (CIC), the Canadian Society for Chemistry (CSC), the Canadian Society for Chemical Engineering (CSChE), and the Canadian Society for Chemical Technology (CSCT). Views expressed do not necessarily represent the official position of the Institute or of the Societies that recommend the magazine.
C
oming away from the 61st Canadian Chemical Engineering Conference, held last October in London, Ont., one could not help thinking that the well-worn aphorism, ‘necessity is the mother of invention,’ is the mantra for a planet facing the end of the era of fossil fuels. The need for solutions to the triple threat of skyrocketing energy demands, population boom and declining fossil fuel reserves has never been more pressing. Just how urgent was articulated by John C. Chen of Lehigh University in his plenary lecture, “Energy for the World: Today and Tomorrow — A Perspective.” World energy consumption, explained Chen, is growing exponentially by 2.8 per cent a year. This will cause current global energy consumption to double by 2050. Based upon proven resources, oil is estimated to last about 56 years, natural gas 118 years and coal 118 years. By 2040 or even earlier, demand will outstrip oil resources, sparking inflation, extreme competition between regions and “I hope not wars,” Chen says. Chemical engineering evolved on the back of fossil fuels: crude petroleum, natural gas and coal. The first-ever oil drill in the mid-1800s in northwestern Pennsylvania was considered revolutionary. The world now needs something as momentous. Conference lecturer Rakesh Agrawal of Purdue University believes that the next revolution lies with solar power — the only easily available and lasting source of energy on earth. For chemical engineers, harnessing solar power in ways that we haven’t seen before is a golden opportunity to deploy all the creativity, scholarship and ingenuity they can muster — necessity being the mother of invention, indeed. We’ve got a great lineup of stories to ring in the New Year. The growing use of fracking, which has sparked protests among some members of the public, is addressed, as is a small-scale mining tragedy in Nigeria that is being remedied with the help of Canadian geochemist Kevin Telmer. We also present a fascinating discussion with poet Adam Dickinson of Brock University, who has found his muse in chemistry. Happy 2012!
Change of Address
circulation@cheminst.ca Printed in Canada by Delta Printing and postage paid in Ottawa, Ont. Publications Mail Agreement Number: 40021620. (USPS# 0007–718) Indexed in the Canadian Business Index and available online in the Canadian Business and Current Affairs database. ISSN 0823-5228
If you want to share your thoughts on any article write to Roberta Staley at rstaley@shaw.ca
Visit us at www.accn.ca
Chemical Institute of Canada
Canada AD AD
“ Green, Clean and Sustainable” Seminar and 2012 SCI/CIC Awards Dinner Thursday, March 29, 2012 Hyatt Regency Toronto The Canadian section of the Society of Chemical Industry (SCI) and the Chemical Institute of Canada (CIC) will be hosting an afternoon seminar series followed by the annual awards ceremony and dinner. The seminar will feature leaders from industry who will speak on a range of topics relating to green chemistry and engineering, followed by an awards dinner in recognition of those who have made outstanding achievements in service, industry and leadership. Join us to participate in the seminar series and to celebrate the success of the 2012 award winners.
To register, please visit www.cheminst.ca/sci_awards. For more information, please contact scidinner@cheminst.ca or call Michelle Moulton at (613)232-6252 ext. 229.
guest column
Why can’t Canada build a bioproducts industry?
W
hen it comes to biochemicals and bioproducts, Canada should be at the head of the pack. We have plenty of biomass from our farms, forests and waste streams and we have chemical and manufacturing companies who need to shift to greener products. We have a strong science base and a public who is increasingly worried about global warming and the price of oil. So why does our bioproduct industry keep contracting? Why is our limited policy focus overlooking the biochemical opportunity? For years we have been studying Canada’s bioproduct industry through the Statistics Canada Bioproduct Production and Development Surveys. More accurately, we have been watching the industry shrink. Compared to 2003, the number of firms has dropped slightly from 232 to 208 but private sector bioproductrelated revenue and employment are both down about 60 per cent, R&D spending by 32 per cent and exports by 70 per cent. These are statistics that you would expect from an industry at the end of its life, not one with so much potential. Where did Canada go wrong? More importantly, what can we do to fix it? Part of the problem is that Canada still doesn’t have a bioproduct strategy or a policy focus that extends much beyond supporting biofuels with incentives and mandates. Those policies have helped build a viable ethanol industry that is now one cornerstone of the Canadian bioproducts industry — in 2009, ethanol accounted for 68 per cent of total bioproduct industry revenue. However, biofuel policies miss many of the real opportunities in some of the other top revenue generating products: organic chemicals, bioenergy, biopolymers and biopesticides.
The chemical industry holds great potential for bio-based alternatives because biochemicals aren’t just about the products themselves. They are often intermediates that can be used to make other industries more competitive. That’s their real beauty — you can make a small change by introducing a biochemical or biopolymer early in the process and help the rest of the value chain go green without changing or disrupting production. One successful bioproduct entrepreneur summed it up perfectly, “The biopolymer that I sell to a manufacturer has to result in no change to their costs and no change to their processes, but still give them a better product at the end.” While 2012 is expected to remain challenging for the chemical industry, the longer term prospects remain positive especially for those firms embracing green chemistry and bio-based alternatives. The segment — including biopharmaceuticals — is projected to represent eight per cent of global chemical sales in 2012. This is an opportunity we don’t want to miss. So although we have fallen behind some competitors, we don’t have to stay there. To capitalize on the bioproduct opportunity Canada needs to rethink its focus on biofuels and broaden its policy incentives to other bioproducts. We also need to recognize Canada’s diverse landscape and regional biomass assets to create localized bioproduct strategies. In southern Ontario, for example, policy and research should target turning agricultural biomass into biochemicals and biocomposites to help the chemical and manufacturing companies cut costs and go green. In British Columbia, northern Ontario, Quebec and the Atlantic
By David Sparling
provinces, much of the attention should be on forestry and not necessarily on the production of new bioproducts. Forestry companies, in particular, use biomass and bioproducts in their internal processes to cut costs — by almost $1 billion in 2009. Although it wasn’t apparent in the 2009 Statistics Canada survey, we have observed that policy makers are starting to get it and starting to invest. So far it’s not necessarily focused, but we are seeing efforts to coordinate policy across ministries and jurisdictions and to work more closely with industry. Industry players are also getting better at working together. This is critical. Since 80 per cent of Canada’s bioproduct companies employ fewer than 50 people, they don’t have all of the resources needed to be successful. Organizations that facilitate partnering between companies and with universities are vital to building partnerships. Success in bioproducts also depends on blending science and engineering with marketing. It’s not enough to make greener products; they have to be adopted by others in the value chain. We still don’t have a bioproduct strategy, or a real bioproduct policy framework but the industry is making progress. I am confident that the next survey will paint a more positive picture of an industry that’s using agricultural and forestry products and making a difference to businesses ranging from chemistry to car companies. David Sparling is a professor and Chair of gri-Food Innovation and Regulation at the A Richard Ivey School of Business, London, Ont.
january 2012 CAnadian Chemical News 7
Chemical News
By Tyler Irving Fundamentals
amide hydrogenation catalyst discovered
8 L’Actualité chimique canadienne
Michael Holly/University of Alberta
The hydrogenation of amides to form amines and alcohols is a notoriously difficult chemical transformation. So the recent discovery at the University of Alberta of a new, highly active catalyst for this kind of reaction could mean big changes for hundreds of synthetic chemical processes. The new catalyst is a variation of a system developed by Ryoji Noyori, who shared the 2001 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his work on catalyzing hydrogenations. Noyori catalysts consist of ruthenium metal atoms complexed with various organic ligands. The active catalysts in these reactions are unstable and are usually made from stable precursors during the hydrogenation reaction they are catalyzing. As such, they are very difficult to directly study on their own. Steve Bergens and his group decided to do just that. “We found that the Noyori catalysts are much more active than anyone ever expected, but despite this high activity, they didn’t give us any significant product for amide hydrogenations,” says Bergens. Bergens and his graduate student Jeremy John hypothesized that the complex was falling apart at the higher temperatures that are required to get amide hydrogenations to work. To solve this, they used a system where the organic ligands were chemically bonded to each other, in addition to the metal itself. “Out of the 20 ideas we had that week, that one worked,” says Bergens. “Like most discoveries, we got lucky.” In 24 hours, each molecule of the new catalyst system can achieve up to 7,600 amide hydrogenations under relatively mild conditions; the previous record was only about a hundred hydrogenations in 48 hours. Since amines and alcohols - the products of amide hydrogenation - are used in everything from polymers to perfume, the catalyst could open up new synthetic pathways and lead to processes that are more efficient and environmentally friendly. “Right now we’re overrun with ideas,” says Bergens. “For example, breaking down nylon might be something to look at. We are thinking about hydrogenating peptides and it might be possible to do that selectively.” Best of all, the system hasn’t yet been optimized, meaning that even better results may lie just around the corner. The work is published in Angewandte Chemie.
Graduate student Jeremy John holds up two vials, one containing his new ruthenium-based catalyst and the other its dichloride analogue. The complexes allow for the rapid hydrogenation of amines, a reaction that was previously possible only under extreme conditions.
education
New online tool for organic nomenclature The ability to quickly convert between organic chemical structures and their scientific names is a vital skill in the chemical sciences, but one many undergraduates struggle with. A new online tool has been developed at the University of Ottawa to help students overcome this challenge. Alison Flynn, a science lecturer in the Department of Chemistry at the University of Ottawa, has noticed a deficit in her students’ organic nomenclature skills. “One of the things that’s difficult is for students to find ways to practice,” Flynn says. “There are questions at the end of textbooks, but we found that resources for drawing structures and getting feedback, particularly in French, were really lacking.” In collaboration with the university’s Teaching and Learning Support and summer student Melissa Daviau-Duguay, Flynn created an interactive website that allows users to practice drawing more than 200 chemical structures based on their International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC) names. Students can click a button to get hints before seeing whether or not their answer is correct. They can also practice naming compounds and functional groups and there is a special section on benzene derivatives. As much as possible, the tool links IUPAC names with common names and uses, grounding the new information in the real world. Flynn hopes that teachers of first- and second-year organic chemistry, as well as high school courses, will use the tool and provide feedback via an online survey. The pilot version can be found at mysite.science.uottawa.ca/aflynn/chemtool/index.php.
janvier 2012
Chemical News Canada's top stories in the chemical sciences and engineering Biochemistry
New chelator illuminates zinc’s key role in memory Your body contains about two grams of zinc, much of it in your brain, but its exact role there has been controversial for over 50 years. Now, a new zinc chelator developed by a team of chemists has shed light on this biochemical puzzle. Long-term potentiation (LTP) is a biochemical process by which the efficiency of a synapse is increased, facilitating the transmission of signals from one neuron to another. It is believed by many to be the mechanism that underlies memory. Experiments have sought to determine zinc’s role in LTP by binding the metal with chelators and preventing its transmission through the synapse. However, results have been mixed. Xiao-An Zhang, a chemistry professor at the University of Toronto Scarborough, was working on this problem during his post-doctoral studies in Stephen Lippard’s lab at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Zhang reasoned that the mixed results were likely due to shortcomings in the commonly used chelators. “There are two major issues,” he says.
“Firstly, you have to bind zinc very selectively over other metal cations such as calcium, sodium, magnesium and potassium. The second is the speed.” If the chelators don’t work quickly enough, some of the zinc gets through the synapse and skews the results. Building on previous work, Zhang and his colleagues created a new chelator called ZX1. It uses a dipicolylamine group to selectively bind the zinc as well as an analine moiety with a negatively charged sulfonate group to improve the binding speed. Using the new chelator, a group at Duke University was able to show conclusively that when zinc is blocked, LTP is significantly diminished. These results could have wide-reaching implications for neurology, including the study of disorders such as epilepsy. “It’s a very inspiring project, and a great opportunity for chemist to work with neuron scientists,” says Zhang. The research is published in Neuron.
Tracy MacDonald/Malgorzata Korbas
Health
Mercury may t arget sensory organs It’s well-known that environmental mercury bioaccumulates in fish and that organic forms of mercury are more easily absorbed than inorganic ones. Now, a study from the University of Saskatchewan shows that the picture is more complex, with accumulation varying not only with the form of mercury but the tissues examined. The study was led by Malgorzata Korbas in the Department of Geological Sciences and Tracy MacDonald, a PhD candidate at the university’s toxicology graduate program, working with professors Graham George and Pat Krone. The team used zebrafish embryos as a model of vertebrate exposure to mercury. They tested two inorganic forms, mercury (II) chloride and mercury (II) bis-L- cysteineate, as well as two organic forms, methylmercury chloride and methylmercury L-cysteineate. Using synchrotron-based X-ray fluorescence imaging, the team created visual representations of the accumulation of mercury in specific organs and tissues. This allowed them to see where mercury ends up in the body much more accurately than would have been possible with a bulk tissue assay. As expected, the inorganic forms were less easily absorbed than the organic ones. However, for all forms of mercury the
These synchrotron based X-ray fluorescence images show mercury accumulation in the organs of zebrafish larvae exposed for 24-hours to various mercury species. Those exposed to 1 µm/L organic mercury (methylmercury L-cysteineate, left) have the highest concentration in eye tissue, which contrasts with those exposed to 2 µm/L inorganic mercury (mercury (II) chloride, right). Scale bar: 50 microns. ccumulation was highest in cells involved in sensing. These a include the olfactory epithelial cells which line the fish’s nose, as well as the retina and cells involved in hearing and balance. “Following mercury poisoning, people often complain of hearing loss or vision problems,” says Korbas. “Before, this was usually attributed to accumulation of mercury in the brain but it could be that the effects are directly connected to mercury accumulating in those sensory cells.” The team hopes that by better understanding how mercury is distributed in the body, they will be able to design effective chelators to prevent mercury poisoning after ingestion. The work is published in ACS Chemical Biology.
january 2012 CAnadian Chemical News 9
Chemical News Materials Science
New copper coating technique could lead to smaller microchips
Professor Sean Barry and PhD candidate Jason Coyle of Carleton’s Department of Chemistry work on a technique called Atomic Layer Deposition (ALD). This involves treating the desired surface with a gas-phase, metal-ion-containing complex called a precursor. Because the precursor complex can bond to the surface but not to other precursor molecules, a one-moleculethick layer is deposited. That layer is then reacted with an activating agent such as hydrogen plasma that causes the metal within the complex to revert to its elemental form and bond to the surface. The process is then repeated a few thousand times, building up a layer of metal only nanometres thick. ALD is decades old, but the difficulty lies in finding the right precursor molecules. Many candidate compounds break down at the temperatures in the reaction vessel, which can reach 250 C. Others have high boiling points and thus require too much energy to put into the vapour phase. The copper precursor developed by Barry and Coyle is unique: it’s stable to 500 C, evaporates at relatively low temperatures and deposits thin, electrically conductive layers of copper. Even better, the same chemistry works to deposit thin layers of gold. “Gold is a tricky metal centre to work with,” says Barry. “There’s a few ALD processes for copper, but until now there were none that worked for gold.” The work was supported by a grant from GreenCentre Canada, which has licensed the technology and is working with Barry and Coyle on securing a patent. The copper process could lead to faster, smaller microchips, while the gold version could lead to better coatings for medical implants and opto-electronic sensing platforms. Best of all, the process allows manufacturers to be more efficient with each metal atom they deposit. “It’s exceedingly slow, but exceedingly careful,” says Barry. “And it’s green in the sense that it improves on a more messy technique.”
water
Calcium decline linked to algae blooms 10 L’Actualité chimique canadienne
janvier 2012
When large blooms of algae appear in lakes, the prime suspect is usually increased phosphorus levels, often due to agricultural runoff. But new research from Queen’s University shows that declining calcium levels can also affect algal production in lakes. The study is based on data from Lake George in King’s County, N.S., where a long-term water monitoring program has been in place since the 1990s. In the past 15 years, the concentration of algae in the lake has almost tripled, but phosphorus levels have remained more or less constant. Biology PhD candidate Jennifer Korosi and her supervisor John Smol suspected that the cause might be a decline in the number of water fleas like Daphnia sp., tiny crustaceans that graze on algae. These in turn are affected by calcium, which they need to grow shells. “Previous work in the lab has shown that once you get past the threshold of about 1.5 mg/L of calcium, Daphnia just can’t reproduce anymore,” says Smol. Korosi examined sediments from the lake bottom to get a historical record of algae and crustacean populations. Near-infrared spectroscopy
greencentre Canada
Atomic layer deposition uses metal-ion containing precursors (1) which chemisorb to a surface (2) in a layer one molecule thick. An activating agent (3) reacts with the precursors and converts the ions to elemental metals (4). A team at Carleton 1 2 3 4 University has developed a If a microchip is a city, copper interconnects are like the streets between different buildings. As new, more efficient precursor those chips continue to shrink, scientists must find ways of laying down ever-thinner layers of for copper and the world's only effective precursor for gold. copper. A new technique developed at Carleton University could hold the answer.
Chemical News Canada's top stories in the chemical sciences and engineering Earth Chemistry
Shelly Arnot/Queen’s University
Stefan Lalonde
Chromium provides evidence of the Great Oxidation Event The point at which Earth’s atmosphere first became oxygenated - known as the Great Oxidation Event - has been a matter of some debate. A new study of chromium levels in ancient rocks by researchers at the University of Alberta has provided evidence that this event may have begun 100 million years earlier than previously thought. Earth’s oxygen was formed by cyanobacteria, photosynthetic organisms that first appeared in the oceans about 2.7 billion years ago. At first, this oxygen made little impact, mostly reacting with volcanic gases and reduced metals in the oceans. It wasn’t until about 2.4 to 2.3 billion years ago that enough of it had accumulated in the atmosphere to leave direct evidence in the fossil record. A team led by geomicrobiologist Kurt Konhauser at the University of Alberta decided to look for indirect evidence. Atmospheric oxygen can facilitate the weathering of iron sulphide, also known as pyrite or fool’s gold. This process, performed by oxygen-breathing, land-based bacteria, results in the production of sulphuric acid. The acid erodes surrounding rocks and washes their contents into ocean sediments. Chromium is only one of the metals that can be deposited this way, but unlike other metals, there are few alternative routes to deposit chromium in sedimentary rocks. Konhauser’s team had previously amassed samples of sedimentary rocks called banded iron formations that span the last three billion years of Earth’s history. After measuring the chromium levels in these rocks, the researchers noticed a spike that began 2.48 billion years ago, and reached its peak at 2.32 billion years ago. “What we’re arguing is that these chromium peaks
measurements of chlorophyll a confirmed that the rise in algae seen in recent years was anomalous compared to the previous century. She also observed a crash in the Daphnia population in the 1990s, around the same time as the chlorophyll a levels started to rise. “We know what factors affect Daphnia and we have methods of testing those,” says Korosi. After eliminating changes in pH, temperature and fish predation, the researchers concluded that calcium decline was the most likely explanation. Calcium enters lakes at a slow rate through weathering of bedrock and leaching from soil. These processes can be affected by acid rain and forestry, both of which have occurred near Lake George. Although algae blooms haven’t reached nuisance levels yet, the researchers warn that they may be increasing in any of the thousands of lakes that rest on the Canadian Shield, all of which have similar chemistry. The research is published in Proceedings of the Royal Society B.
Banded iron formations, such as this one from the Hamersley Range in Western Australia, span about three billion years of Earth’s history. By searching for chromium residues in these rocks, geologists from the University of Alberta have found some of the earliest evidence of Earth’s oxygenated atmosphere. had to come from land to the oceans,” says Konhauser. “The only way to do that is under highly acidic conditions and the only way to do that is to have oxygen available to oxidize the pyrite.” If proven correct, this would be some of the earliest evidence of land-based, oxygen-breathing life ever found. The research is published in Nature.
Water fleas like this Daphnia specimen depend on calcium in lake water to grow their shells. Acid rain and forestry practices have reduced natural calcium levels, which in turn could lead to loss of water fleas and blooms of algae on which they feed.
january 2012 CAnadian Chemical News 11
Increased exploration of shale gas structures using hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, has sparked protests from Canadians who fear the process will contaminate groundwater. By D’Arcy Jenish
T
he 10,000-member Blood Tribe of southern Alberta occupies the largest reserve in Canada. It also happens to be one of the most physically striking: 1,443 sq. kilometres of rolling prairie and forested foothills bordered on the west by snow-capped Rocky Mountains. The Blood lands are ideal for cattle ranching and grain growing, but until very recently have been overlooked by the province’s energy industry. That changed in the fall of 2010 when Calgary-based Murphy Oil Co. paid the Blood Tribal Council $50 million for exploration leases covering between one quarter and a third of the reserve. This past summer Murphy began drilling, sparking heated debates and protests among some reserve residents, which culminated Sept. 9 in the blockade of a drill site and the arrest of three Blood women. In a province where massive oil deposits were first discovered in 1947, routine exploration activity rarely attracts much public interest, let alone protest. But in order to extract the oil
14 L’Actualité chimique canadienne
janvier 2012
believed to be hundreds of metres below Blood lands, Murphy Oil may have to resort to a controversial technique known as hydraulic fracturing. Fracking, as it is commonly called, involves injecting liquids laced with various chemicals into a reservoir to break the host rock, which allows the hydrocarbons to flow to a well. “It’s disturbing to think what this place will look like five years from now when the oil company is gone,” says Rebeka Many Grey Horses, who participated in the September blockade. “The chief and council failed to consult the people on this. We had no other way of drawing attention to our concerns.” The protestors’ concerns are similar to those expressed by residents of other parts of Canada and the United States where oil and gas companies intend to use hydraulic fracturing to tap into petroleum reserves. One of the big fears among members of the public is that fracking will allow fluids to migrate upward and contaminate groundwater. Others have raised alarms about the huge volumes of
Chemical Engineering | hydraulic fracturing
Fracturing using horizontal drilling allows energy companies to penetrate rock formations many kilometres below the surface.
chemically contaminated water used in such operations. Some of that water usually flows back to the well and ultimately to the surface and must be disposed of safely. Earlier this year, a group of demonstrators spent a month walking 600 kilometres from Rimouski, Que. on the lower St. Lawrence River to Montreal where they joined several thousand others who staged a major protest against a natural gas exploration project that involves fracking. “We want to send a message that this government needs to put this whole industry on hold for at least 20 years until we know what’s happening to these 450-million-year-old formations that we’re destroying in order to extract gas,” says organizer Philippe Duhamel. A similar demonstration occurred outside the provincial legislature in Fredericton, N.B. on a holiday Monday in August and attracted more than 1,000 people. The New Brunswick government has introduced stiff regulations requiring oil and gas companies to disclose the chemicals used in fracking and to post security bonds to protect homeowners from any environmental mishaps. Quebec, meanwhile, has gone further and imposed a moratorium on hydraulic fracturing until further studies of the process are completed. Officials with energy companies, as well as representatives of industry associations, insist that public fears of contaminated water supplies are misplaced, and even some
prominent environmentalists agree. “There’s no evidence that fracturing fluids have migrated upward to the level of groundwater,” says Matt Horne, acting director of the climate change program with the Pembina Institute, an environmental think tank based in Drayton Valley, Alta. Still, Horne and others have reservations about fracking. “The scale and scope of the activity have changed dramatically in the past 10 years,” he says. “We need to step back and study it and make sure we have adequate regulations in place.” But industry representatives insist their track record suggests otherwise. They contend that hydraulic fracturing has been a common practice for 60 years in Alberta and the petroleum producing western states south of the border. That’s due to variations in the geology of petroleum deposits. In most cases, conventional oil and gas resides in porous and highly permeable sandstone and limestone formations and can easily be pumped to the surface. Sometimes, though, the hydrocarbons are found in so-called tight formations and can only be flushed out by injecting liquids under intense pressure. Kerry Guy, manager of natural gas advocacy with the Calgary-based Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers (CAPP), says that Alberta’s Energy Resources Conservation Board has detailed files on 167,000 wells that have been subjected to fracking since the early 1950s. “They are on record as saying that they are not aware of a single case of
january 2012 CAnadian Chemical News 15
Biff Mitchell
Protestors in New Brunswick staged anti-fracking protests last August, fearing that fracking would contaminate groundwater with chemicals.
fracturing fluids migrating upwards into drinking water supplies,” says Guy. In the past decade or so, energy companies have begun developing unconventional sources of oil and gas for several reasons. First, conventional reserves are in decline. Second, rising prices and technological advances have made it feasible to tackle deeper, previously uneconomic formations. These factors have led to a rush to explore shale gas structures in Quebec, New Brunswick and especially northeastern British Columbia. Such deposits are generally located 2,000 to 3,000 metres below the surface, several hundred metres below conventional deposits and two kilometres or more below groundwater, which is generally found at depths of 80 to 150 metres. The development of shale gas reserves represents a new horizon for Canada’s energy producers, and one the country badly needs, says Guy, despite the lingering public doubts about the safety of hydraulic fracturing. “Conventional natural gas has been in decline in North America,” he says. “The industry has been living hand to mouth for 20 years and that has made prices quite volatile. A lot of new reserves
16 L’Actualité chimique canadienne
janvier 2012
are now economically accessible. As a result, we have a 100-year supply at current demand in North America.” The challenge, however, is that shale is impermeable. Natural gas will not flow unassisted from this rock to a well and then to the surface. Fortunately, it is also very brittle and susceptible to fracturing. As well, energy companies are now able to penetrate much further into these formations due to the advent of horizontal drilling. That is, they drill straight down to the natural gas-laden shale and then bore several hundred metres into it horizontally. Only then does a fracking operation begin. Mike Dawson, president of the Calgary-based Canadian Society for Unconventional Gas, explains that a hydraulic fracture takes place in four stages. First, liquids — in most cases water — are pumped into the well at extraordinarily high pressure to crack the shale. Next, the drill crew pumps additional fluids to create a sort of spider web of fractures that can be 500 to 800 metres in length. The first burst of liquid is similar to a stone hitting a windshield and causing a chip. The second, says Dawson, “is like taking a sledgehammer to a windshield.”
The crew then injects liquids containing minute grains of round, heat and pressure-resistant sand known as proppants. Finally, the pressure is reduced, allowing the fluids to flow back to the well bore. But the proppants remain in place. They keep open the fractures, which serve as pathways that allow the gas to migrate through the shale. Dawson notes that the liquid and proppants constitute 99.5 per cent by volume of the material injected into a well. The balance consists of chemicals that serve a variety of purposes. Gellants are used to enhance the viscosity of the fracking fluid, improve the suspension of the proppants and reduce friction. One of the most common is guar gum, a white powder derived from the guar bean, which is grown commercially in India and Pakistan. More refined versions of this bean are used as thickening agents in dairy products, sauces and other foodstuffs. In some cases, tiny quantities of metals such as boron, zirconium, titanium and iron are used as crosslinkers, which act on the gellants that keep the proppants suspended and allow them to be carried further into a reservoir. Biocides, some of them manufactured and some derived from natural sources, are used to prevent the growth of bacteria that can produce hydrogen sulphide, which can turn natural gas from ‘sweet’ to ‘sour.’ Soap-like surfactants are used to enhance the ability of the fracture fluid to flow back to the surface, and occasionally CO2 or N2 are injected into the well to improve this recovery. The biggest issue for many environmentalists and community activists is the volume of water required for fracking. For example, the B.C. government issued licenses in 2009 allowing oil and gas companies to use 86.5 billion litres for hydraulic fracturing, although they consumed only about five per cent of that. In April 2010, however, Houston-based Apache Corp. mounted North America’s largest ever fracking operation in the Horn River basin of northeastern B.C. The company conducted 247 fracks from a 16-well pad and pumped 980 million litres of liquid. The water used in fracking is sometimes purchased from municipalities and sometimes drawn directly from rivers or lakes. Dawson says that in most cases some of the liquids are recovered, though that can vary from less than 50 per cent to as much as 90 to 95 per cent, depending on the character of the formation. Fracking fluids can be re-used, though not in every case. “If it’s not reusable, you have to pump it into a disposal well in close vicinity to where you're drilling,”
Dawson adds. “you're not allowed to dispose of it on the surface in any way.” The problem with consumption on such a large scale, says Pembina’s Horne, is that at least two agencies, the B.C. Oil and Gas Commission and the provincial environment ministry, regulate the use of water and sometimes one branch doesn't know what the other is doing. “B.C. has a fragmented approach to water regulation,” Horne says. “There’s no clear picture of how much water is being used in the shale gas region and what that might mean in 10 or 15 years if the development reaches some of the industry forecasts.” But at least one B.C. municipality has turned that kind of demand to its advantage. Dawson Creek, a community of some 12,000 people located 400 kilometres northeast of Prince George and just inside the Alberta-B.C. border, is the major service centre for oil companies developing the Montney Basin shale gas deposits. Kevin Henderson, Dawson Creek’s director of infrastructure and sustainable development, says the town has been selling almost 25 per cent of the output from its water treatment plant for fracking operations. Henderson acknowledges that any increased demand would put a strain on the system and could force the municipality to balance the needs of local taxpayers as well as rural residents who draw on the town's water supply. However, Shell Oil has agreed to invest $10 million in a wastewater treatment plant that will draw effluent from the community’s five sewage lagoons, clean it up and use it as a fracking liquid. That will reduce demand on the town’s water treatment plant and it will mean that effluent will no longer be discharged into the Kiskatinaw River, the source of Dawson Creek’s drinking water. Henderson says the municipality is kicking in $1.5 million, but could not afford to pay the full price. Hydraulic fracturing is likely to remain controversial, despite the record in Alberta and other traditional petroleum producing regions. Oil and gas companies are being forced by the depletion of conventional reserves to probe ever more deeply into the earth for new sources. They are also venturing into provinces such as Quebec and New Brunswick where governments and the public have not had much, if any, experience with exploration for petroleum reserves. And that unfamiliarity, as much as anything, may account for much of the opposition to fracking, which means it may take years before public apprehensions disa pear.
january 2012 CAnadian Chemical News 17
WIN ME
ACCN, the C anadian Chemical News
Readership Survey The Canadian Chemical News (ACCN) needs your input to help improve the magazine to better serve your information needs. By telling us what you like - and don’t like - we can enhance the editorial product and provide more relevant advertorial content. Please fill out this quick and easy readership survey before Feb. 1 and your name will be entered into a draw for a Kindle e-book reader.
www.accnsurvey.com Good luck and thank you!
QA &
Chemical Bard
By Tyler Irving
Poet Adam Dickinson explores how chemicals interact with our bodies and our culture.
dam Dickinson is a professor of English Language & Literature at Brock University in St. Catharines, Ont. whose work often touches on the relationship between science and art. Dickinson’s third collection of poetry, The Polymers, explores the connections between chemical polymers and modern culture. Last summer, he received funding for a new project, Anatomic: Semiotic Bodies, Chemical Environments, which addresses how our bodies are constantly re-written through contact with both natural and man-made chemicals. ACCN spoke with Dickinson to discover what poetry and chemistry have in common. ACCN Explain the meaning of the title Anatomic: SemioticBodies, Chemical Environments. AD I was thinking of several different possibilities, one of
which is the word ‘anatomy’ and the fact that I’m dealing with a body, in this case my body. I was also interested in the word ‘atom’ located inside that word. Bodies have been understood as atomic forms through different kinds of discourse; we see this in terms of medicine but we also see this in terms of poetry, where the body of lyric or confessional poetry itself becomes a kind of atom, or atomized subject that needs to be broken down. I’m interested in this idea of an elemental constituent; the body, of course, is the fundamental way with which we interact with the world. The skin is a very permeable membrane and this permeability is partly what I’m interested in thinking about through art.
20 L’Actualité chimique canadienne
janvier 2012
ACCN How did you become interested in the connection
between chemistry, the environment and our bodies? AD I’ve been accused of being a germaphobe ever since I was
a kid. I don’t feel that I’m frightened of germs, I’m just very interested in my relationship to the unseen world around me. And as much as that includes microbes it also includes, as I have come to learn, chemicals. I’ve been interested in studies that identified toxins in waterways, the persistence of chemicals like birth control pills or antibiotics in water systems and problems in fish because of endocrine-disrupting chemicals. Another inspiration was an experiment by Bruce Lourie and Rick Smith, authors of Slow Death by Rubber Duck: How the Toxic Chemistry of Everyday Life Affects our Health. They subjected themselves to a number of chemicals over a three- or four-day period and then tested their blood for things like phthalates and mercury. They ate a lot of tuna, microwaved their food in plastic dishes and stain-mastered their couch. People of a certain age have measureable amounts of dioxins in their bodies. What does this mean? What kinds of permeable beings are we and how do we reckon with this pollution?
Chemistry | poetic polymerization Moreover, this is pollution that doesn’t discriminate between rich and poor. ACCN What do you plan to do in Anatomic? AD In addition to extensive research, I will subject myself
to ‘body burden’ testing and microbial screening via blood and urine tests. This will measure levels of common pollutants in my body as well as resident viruses, bacteria, fungi and other symbiotic organisms. I am planning to test myself for 68 chemicals that fall under the following groups: phthalates; PCBs (polychlorinated biphenyls); PFCs (perfluorinated chemicals); OCPs (organochlorine pesticides); OPIMs (organophosphate insecticide metabolites); PAHs (polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons) and BPA (bisphenol A). All of these chemicals are believed to exist in every human to varying degrees. By making a map of the toxicological and symbiotic circumstances of my body, I want to then use this information to create methodologies for producing poems. As a kind of unconventional science project, the poems will take their cue from the structures, histories and behaviours of the chemicals and organisms involved in order to re-write a body being rewritten by its environment. Ultimately, in addition to raising questions about pollution, part of what I am interested in doing is reframing distinctions between the natural and the unnatural as well as between the human and the nonhuman. ACCN How will you turn the
data into poetry? AD While I am interested in drawing attention to important questions about pollution, it’s not my intention to produce a kneejerk screed against these chemicals or to criticize chemists. Instead, I’m interested
in the way in which our bodies are being rewritten by the world we live in — this is part of the evolutionary process. I plan to include the section on microorganisms within my body in order to complicate that relationship. What counts as pollution if microorganisms have already been contaminating the body for symbiotic purposes over the course of a lifetime and over the course of evolutionary history? I’m not simply condemning the fact that we live in this world of volatile chemicals. I want to look closely at the ‘outside’ that has come ‘inside’ and the problems that we have making such a fundamental distinction. If the environment is rewriting our bodies, how can we respond to that through writing? How can poetry respond to the contemporary predicament of chemicals in the environment? I want to create a kind of toxicological map of my body and I’ve got these 68 chemicals that I’m going to test for. But I also want to do a lot of research into the cultural and scientific history of these chemicals. Mercury has been with us for thousands of years. We’ve known it’s a neurotoxin for a very long time, yet we work with it. Lead is another example. I also want to research the ways in which these chemicals are produced. Plastics are essential to how we live our lives now, but I think people don’t know very much about how they’re produced or the history. A lot of inventions in plastics were accidental. The poems will reflect the kinds of methodologies that I discover, through historical, cultural and scientific studies of chemicals. ACCN Can you give an example of a poem you
might write? AD I’ve been thinking about BPA as an endocrine disruptor
as well as its chemical structure. Taking the repetition of this formal polymer structure as a poetic methodology, I wanted to write a poem that enacted the misreading that takes place as a result of BPA. I had two texts interfere with each other. BPA is prepared through the condensation of acetone — in this case, words drawn from the first and last sentences of each chapter of Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring — with two equivalent units of phenol. For this, I used the unfolding text from Stanley Milgram’s advertisement seeking volunteers for his deceptive experiment on obedience conducted in 1962. I’ve combined these texts according to this repeating unit of BPA. The structure of the molecule constrains the structure of the poem itself.
january 2012 CAnadian Chemical News 21
ACCN The idea of a polymer structure constraining art and culture is something you also explore in The Polymers. AD I’d been thinking a lot about plastics, and I see these two
Polysyndeton By Adam Dickinson make a roof for the people, and the people walk down the street with resin for a roof, and the roof has magnesium in it, and sulphur, and the people walk down the street with resin in their hair, and resins are always falling from the sky to the ground, and the birds make a people in the sky, a people of the resin, and the resin is composed of sky, and it composes the sky, and the people walking down
projects as connected with The Polymers an unofficial prequel to Anatomic. I’m interested in giant molecules because they are integral to the constitution of organic beings and also because they are important in synthetic materials like plastics. Plastics are fascinating. They are considered banal or cheap but they’re also futuristic: colloquial and scientific all at the same time. Plastics have this relationship between the literal and the metaphorical — they are often asked to stand in for things in the natural world, a replacement for wood, steel and rock. So there’s this literary tension between the literal and the metaphorical. I suggest that culture itself is a kind of polymer. If you look at cultural memes repeated on the Internet, YouTube and Facebook, they have a kind of polymeric structure: things get repeated and chains get built and extended. Culture is also a kind of plastic in the way that people think about it and treat it in the popular media. ACCN Who is your audience?
the street are the strings of resins, and covering
AD I expect and hope that my work will appeal to poets, envi-
their hair with their arms, with newspapers, with
ronmentalists, literary scholars, researchers and students in the arts and science as well as a general audience. Given that poetry is concerned with the limits of language and the experimental horizons of writing, I think it is uniquely positioned to engage these sorts of questions. In the contemporary zeitgeist, people are thinking a lot more about the relationship between nature and culture as we’re confronted with issues like global warming or issues of local pollution. I’d like to frame the discussion in a unique way.
umbrellas, the people are the birds of resins throwing their landings in the air like people for whom landings are uncommon, like people committed to the expulsion of landings, the resins coming down upon them like people driven out of countries discovered by resins or that have discovered resins in veins, in the countertops of suburbs, and people walk down the street with resins for hair, with countries committed to colour, with the bonds between them the birds circling, and people walking down the street with hunched shoulders so as not to look up and
ACCN Do you see chemistry as a cause or a solution for environmental problems?
call the resins by name, call the resins in the name
AD It’s easy to condemn the presence of the chemicals around
of the birds, the people, circling and loosening.
us. I think in many ways the environmental crisis is very much a crisis of imagination. By this I mean that we have to think about how we construct our relationships to the things we produce and the things we consume — these are fluid and culturally determined definitions. My project is about paying attention to this, and trying to shift the conversation a bit as well as grounding it in my own body. I think that it’s easy sometimes for us to forget that while pollution concerns are out there, they’re in here too, inside our own bodies, and I want that to be my point of departure.
From The Polymers, an upcoming collection of poetry.
22 L’Actualité chimique canadienne
janvier 2012
january 2012 CAnadian Chemical News   23
All that University of Victoria’s Kevin Telmer is helping artisanal gold miners in Nigeria improve extraction of gold from lead-laced ores following an epidemic of lead poisoning that reportedly killed hundreds of children. By Roberta Staley
T
he symptoms: fever, stomach ache, seizures, coma and death, were initially thought to be caused by one of the other common maladies — malaria, meningitis or measles — that strike so many children in sub-Saharan Africa. When the youngsters in Nigeria’s state of Zamfara didn’t respond to antibiotics or other conventional treatments, the puzzled Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) team sent blood samples from the children to Europe for analysis. The results revealed severe lead poisoning. But what was the source of the contamination? The Hausa subsistence farmers and herders of Zamfara had, before children began dying in early 2010, initiated small-scale, artisanal gold mining in response to soaring prices and high demand. They dug shallow mines to bring up ore veined with gold. The men carried chunks of rock back to the villages in sacks. Women and children pounded the ore into fragments for grinding in eight-horsepower flourmills to separate the gold from the ore. Instead of flour dust, the villages were now covered in red rock dust that, unbeknownst to the inhabitants, contained high amounts of lead. This form of lead isn’t excreted by the body and quickly builds up to toxic levels. Children, most of them aged five and younger, took sick in the hundreds, convulsing, falling into a coma and, finally, dying. When MSF workers first went to the region, says Mike Fark, operations manager with MSF Canada, one of their first grim tasks was to count the
24 L’Actualité chimique canadienne
janvier 2012
fresh graves. Survivors, Fark says, suffered “significant brain damage and reduced functioning in general, resulting in severe permanent neurological damage similar to cerebral palsy, as well as blindness and deafness.” MSF treated the poisoned children — 2,000 by recent counts, making the Zamfara epidemic one of the worst cases of acute heavy metal poisoning in history — with chelation therapy. Chelating drugs such as ethylene diamine tetraacetic acid (EDTA) grab onto heavy metal molecules, which are then expelled in urine. Clean up was also started. TerraGraphics Environmental Engineering, an Idaho-based consulting firm that cleans heavily polluted sites around the globe, began remediating the soil by scraping off the top level. The group was assisted by a host of international agencies, university students, Nigerian government staff and hundreds of Hausa labourers. By March 2011, 430 residential compounds and 30 ponds had been decontaminated, according to the University of Idaho publication Here We Have Idaho. Still, says Fark, at least 163 Hausa, most of them children, have been confirmed dead from lead poisoning, although some reports put the death toll at 500. Another 1,600 to 1,800 youngsters are in need of medical care but aren’t receiving it, Fark says, because they are still living on lead-laced ground. “You cannot treat children that are in a contaminated environment because they just become re-exposed.”
Business | artisanal gold mining
Kevin Telmer
1
(1) Artisanal miners in Zamfara state in northwestern Nigeria dig up ores rich in lead and gold, grind it, then sluice it over carpets to produce a concentrate. (2) Mercury, added to the concentrate to create an amalgam, is evaporated over small fires to create ‘sponge gold,’ so-named because the vaporizing chemical leaves tiny holes.
2
An effective health strategy, MSF realized, would have to incorporate not only treatment for poisoning and soil remediation but contamination prevention. So it contacted University of Victoria geochemist Kevin Telmer, co-founder and executive director of the not-for-profit Artisanal Gold Council (AGC), which is dedicated to creating sustainable development and improving the health of artisanal and small-scale gold mining communities worldwide. Small-scale gold mining, practiced by 10 million people in 70 countries, represents a critical global development issue due to pollution and health problems. Telmer has been studying small-scale mining and its effect on the environment since 1995, when he worked as a geologist for the Canadian government surveying Brazilian mining communities. Last July, he travelled at MSF’s request to Zamfara to assess the situation. The ores
january 2012 CAnadian Chemical News 25
of Zamfara are rich in galena (lead sulfide), lead oxide and lead carbonates. When small chunks of ore are ground up in the flourmills, these minerals settle into the soil around the mud brick homes where the children play. Soil testing showed lead levels of 10 to 20 per cent, Telmer says. Since all small children ingest on average a gram a day of soil from playing outside, “20 per cent of one gram in your mouth — you have lead poisoning,” says Telmer, who saw first-hand the injurious effects. “The children are thin and pallid with unhappy, glazed eyes and, like any sick child, not very responsive.” But he also saw solutions. The first, most obvious problem was the dry milling, Telmer says by telephone from AGC’s Victoria headquarters. To liberate the gold, villagers would put the dry rock through the grinding plates of the flourmills three times, which created huge amounts of dust. Local Islamic leaders, called emirs, had ordered the flourmills to be moved outside of the residential compounds but lead-heavy dust still drifted into compounds. The miners also re-contaminated the compounds when they returned home in their dusty clothes. Impoverished Zamfara miners couldn’t, economically, simply stop mining. Soaring world gold prices — more than $900 an ounce by 2008, according to Gold News — had pushed the small-scale miners’ daily income to $5 from $1. By 2011, 100,000 Zamfara miners had extracted 10 tonnes of gold with a realized profit of about 80 per cent, Telmer says. “The magic of gold is that it transfers wealth almost directly; it’s a great mechanism for transferring wealth from rich to poor.” Telmer could advise not only on improved gold-recovery techniques and thus potentially greater profits but cleaner, more sustainable mining methods. “The miners were very eager and very happy to meet someone like me,” Telmer says, who is a technical advisor to the United Nations on artisanal gold mining. Nigeria is an oil-rich nation; mining has played little part in its economic history and there are no technical mining schools. Nonetheless, traditional methods of extracting gold had been adopted that are moderately efficacious. After milling the ore and grinding it until it is almost powder, it is mixed with water and washed down a carpeted incline in a classic method called sluicing. Because the gold is heavy, it sticks to the fibers of the carpeting, forming a gravity concentrate.
26 L’Actualité chimique canadienne
janvier 2012
Several tonnes of rock are reduced to about 20 kilograms at this stage. Mercury, bought in 200-gram glass bottles for $50 each, is now added to the concentrate to create an amalgam. This is heated over small fires to evaporate the mercury, creating “sponge gold,” so named because the vaporizing chemical leaves sponge-like holes in the hard, glittering material. This stage of extraction raises more health concerns, says Telmer, as workers inhale toxic mercury vapours that, through prolonged exposure, can cause brain, kidney and lung damage as well as tremors and impaired vision. This is a problem that extends far beyond Zamfara, adds Telmer. Due to the increase globally in small-scale mining, it is now one of the top emitters of mercury in the world, releasing about 1,400 tonnes annually into the environment. The 20 kilograms of concentrate might yield from 10 to 20 grams of gold, which is taken to a local gold dealer who refines it further for export. But the process is inefficient, says Telmer, and only captures from 20 to 50 per cent of the gold present in the ore. “The flourmills are terrible at liberating the gold effectively and don’t produce a consistently fine grind,” he says. The miners of Zamfara had just begun to collect the tailings, which Telmer believes could yield more gold by leaching with chemicals such as cyanide, which is often used for gold recovery at large mining operations. Cyanide, although deadly if ingested, oxidizes and transforms via natural processes into less toxic chemicals when exposed to the air. Nonetheless, it must be carefully managed when used in mining operations to mitigate risk, adds Telmer. Although Telmer’s trip to Zamfara was mainly to assess the extent of the problem to determine long-term, inexpensive solutions, he did make suggestions to the miners as “a quick fix measure.” Rather than adding water following milling, Telmer recommended adding it at the start. By milling wet rocks and discharging directly onto sluices, workers can dramatically cut down on lead-laden dust. This not only saves time but liberates more gold, he says. In order to lessen exposure to mercury, Telmer suggested using recycling technology such as a closed-retort distilling system to avoid releasing vapours into the atmosphere and allow for mercury recovery. The closed, or non-vented, system is relatively inexpensive and simple and involves using a boiling vessel with cooling tube
2
Kevin Telmer
1 1
(1) Gold is liberated by grinding the ore in a flourmill, which creates high levels of dust heavily contaminated with toxic lead. (2) Kevin Telmer with the chairman of the Association of Miners of the Village of Yargalma, Nigeria where hundreds of children fell ill and at least 160 died of lead poisoning. (3) Small-scale mining is the world’s top emitter of mercury, releasing about 1,400 tonnes annually into the environment.
that catches the mercury and directs it into a catch container. Even simple retorts boast 95 per cent recovery. Although retorts are not currently being used in Zamfara, Telmer believes that, because they are cheap, easy to use and save the miners money, they can easily be adapted into the gold recovery process. Telmer wrote a report following his Nigeria trip for the World Bank and MSF that provided solutions to assist the villagers modernize their gold extraction techniques to maximize potential profits and reduce contamination. He is also seeking funding so that an organization like AGC can set up pilot processing plants to teach miners how to wet mill and use retorts. This training system, says Telmer, should not only provide instruction to miners but train people how to teach these mining techniques. In the long-term, Telmer says, Zamfara’s small-scale mining sector should move to a zero mercury processing system that effectively liberates the gold and provides good concentration. Telmer would also like
3
to see the adoption of high quality sluices or centrifuges or shaker tables to concentrate the gold, possibly by the creation of community processing plants. Such methods, used in other artisanal small-scale mining sites throughout the world, allow for up to 70 per cent gold recovery — all without using mercury, Telmer adds. He estimates that such a processing plant would cost about $200,000 to set up and could be run by local miners. Thanks to a long history of mining and gold extraction, Canadian mining companies have a deep repository of knowledge to offer the world and could easily assist small-scale miners like those in Zamfara improve their economic lot while ensuring their children grow up healthy. “They just need enhanced training, skills and access to a little bit of capital to move forward,” says Telmer.
january 2012 CAnadian Chemical News 27
Society news Conferences
Engineering solutions to globe’s biggest challenges
28 L’Actualité chimique canadienne
1
3 2
from industry leaders who have successfully navigated the perilous path to commercialization in areas as diverse as water treatment, nanotechnology, antibody production and green chemistry. The CIC Chair’s Event, Women in Engineering: Innovation, Entrepreneurship and Leadership, featured a lecture by Ilse Treurnicht, the CEO of MaRS Discovery District, followed by a panel discussion featuring top Canadian women chemical engineers. One of the concerns of bright young scientists is finding a place to launch their career. To this end, the Canadian Society for Chemical Technology (CSCT) hosted an Eastern Student Symposium for chemical and chemical engineering technologists to discover first-hand how to make inroads into the corporate world following graduation. Student delegates in engineering were given the opportunity to engage in extracurricular activities outside the conference, thanks to the Student Organizing Committee of UWO, which
janvier 2012
(1) Molly Shoichet, MCIC, speaks at the CIC Chair’s event, which featured a panel discussion on Women in Engineering. (2) Choon Jim Lim, MCIC, receives the Bantrel Award in Design and Industrial Practice from Robert Legros, MCIC, now past-president of CSChE. (3) Students competed for top poster.
arranged tours to Sarnia’s Ontario Power Generation Lambton Generation Station and CF Industries, Labatt Breweries and UWO’s chemical engineering laboratories. Programming for undergraduates and graduates culminated in the student banquet, where the Student Chapters’ Merit Awards were given out. Equally grand was the Conference and Awards Banquet, which saw a plethora of awards handed out to outstanding chemical engineering researchers, industry leaders and organizations. Photos from all events are available at www.csche2011.ca. This year’s 62nd Canadian Chemical Engineering Conference is set for Oct. 14–17 at the Hyatt Regency in Vancouver.
krista leroux
There is nothing like throwing down the gauntlet at the start of a conference to grab delegates’ attention. And that’s what Amit Chakma, president of the University of Western Ontario (UWO) did at the 61st Canadian Chemical Engineering Conference held last Oct. 23–26 in London, Ont. A chemical engineering professor, Chakma challenged delegates to think about “who does our sector serve — industry or humanity?” Solutions to the world’s massive water, energy and food challenges must incorporate chemical engineering innovation with broader societal aspirations, meshing industrial and humanitarian concerns, Chakma says. Chakma’s call to the 1,131 attendees to balance ethics with innovation was echoed in many of the plenary sessions. Delegates also heard about the latest research in nearly 600 lectures. They were also able to view it up close, with 120 outstanding posters being presented. Plenary lecturer David T. Fung, MCIC, CEO of ACDEG Group, tied innovation to commercialization. Fung, whose company has interests in forest products, biomass energy, clean technologies, agri-food, chemicals and marine equipment, admonished Canadians to embrace collaborative enterprises and seize international business opportunities. Despite our top notch universities and well-managed companies, we are “horrible” when it comes to successful commercialization, Fung says. Canadian expertise could become one of the country’s greatest exports. “We do not need to stay home,” Fung says. “We don’t need to worry about where to apply our innovation. We just need to go there.” In keeping with the conference theme of Industry, Innovation, and Internationalization, two unique industrial symposia were convened. The first, Globalization and the Chemical Industry, used panel discussions to explore ways in which chemical engineering innovation can help solve large global challenges, such as energy and water supply. The second, Chemical Industry: Trend, Need, Lead featured talks
Society news
© Bruce Eric Kaplan/The New Yorker Collection
OUTREACH
Students wrap water experiments As part of the annual National Chemistry Week, Canadian students took part in IUPAC’s Global Water Experiment commemorating the 2011 International Year of Chemistry. The aim was to have students around the world explore one of Earth’s most critical resources — water. Schools from across Canada tested different water sources for pH, salinity and purification. They also experimented with distillation methods. The salinity experiment gave students the opportunity to use either a homemade or commercial meter to measure the conductivity of water samples to learn about salts and determine concentrations of salts in solutions. Using household materials, students built a water filtration unit and identified the efficiency of different filtration materials. As follow up, they carried out treatment of the water. To explore alternative ways of purifying water, students used a solar still to learn about the distillation process and the states of matter. The activity also provided students with the opportunity to design and build their own efficient stills. Contributing their results to a global database, students could compare water conditions in their areas to different locations around the world. For more information, go to http://water.chemistry2011.org/web/iyc/experiments. Further Canadian experiments will take place as part of National Chemistry Week 2012. recogNition
Hall of Fame for Senator Senator Kelvin Ogilvie, FCIC, has been inducted into the Canadian Science and Engineering Hall of Fame. The honour was bestowed last Nov. 18 at the Canada Science and Technology Museum in Ottawa. The distinction, a central part of the Innovation Canada exhibition at the Canada Science and Technology Museum, recognizes individuals whose outstanding scientific or technological achievements impact the lives of Canadians. Ogilvie is the past president and vice-chancellor of Acadia University in Wolfville, N.S. An award-winning, international expert in biotechnology, bioorganic chemistry and genetic engineering, Ogilvie’s scientific accomplishments include the invention of the ‘gene machine,’ an automated process for the manufacture of DNA, as well as development of the powerful infection-fighting drug Ganciclovir. Ogilvie, who was admitted to the Order of Canada in 1991, was appointed to the Senate in 2009. Currently, he chairs the Senate Standing Committee on Social Affairs, Science and Technology and is a member of the Senate Standing Committee on Agriculture and Forestry and Chair of Research Canada’s Health Research Caucus.
upcoming events
March 29, 2012
SCI/CIC Seminar and Awards Dinner Toronto, Ont. www.cheminst.ca/sci-awards
April 29‒May 2, 2012
World Congress on Industrial Biotechnology and Bioprocessing Orlando, Florida www.bio.org
May 26‒30, 2012
95th Canadian Chemistry Conference and Exhibition Calgary, Alta. www.csc2012.ca
October 14‒17, 2012 62nd Canadian Chemical Engineering Conference Vancouver, B.C. www.csch2012.ca
August 18‒23, 2013
9th World Congress of Chemical Engineerings (WCCE9) Seoul, South Korea www.wcce9.org IN MEMORIAM
Nuclear chemist honoured Nuclear chemist Donald Wiles, FCIC, a 50-year member of the Canadian Society for Chemistry (CSC), was conferred an honorary degree by Carleton University at fall convocation last Nov. 12. Wiles is a longtime Carleton faculty member who has written extensively on nuclear fission, corrosion and hot atom chemistry. His expertise has been called upon by such noted institutions as the National Research Council and the Federal Environmental Assessment Review Panel.
Walter Harris, HFCIC, died Oct. 20, 2011, age 96, in Edmonton, Alta. Peter Susel, MCIC, died July 15, 2011, age 62, in Mississauga, Ont. James G. Fogo, MCIC, died Aug. 4, 2011, age 82, in Ottawa, Ont. Full obituaries received by ACCN can be seen at www.accn.ca/inmemoriam.
january 2012 CAnadian Chemical News 29
Chemfusion
Chef Oliver twists science for his food revolution
C
elebrity chefs are cooking up a storm these days. But at least one is also brewing up controversy. British chef Jamie Oliver opened up a can of worms with his plan to improve the food served in Los Angeles schools. Actually, worms would probably be an improvement over some of the fatty processed food served, but after initially agreeing to the filming of Oliver’s popular Food Revolution program inside its schools, the Los Angeles board decided that while the chef’s ideas for improved nutrition would be welcome, his cameras would not be. I like Oliver. Unlike many nutritional gurus, he is not an extremist. While he favours organic ingredients, Oliver doesn’t espouse a vegan diet and is not averse to a hamburger. He just wants hamburger to be made of proper ground beef, not various meat by-products. And if kids are to have an ice cream sundae, he’d rather “it didn’t contain shellac, hair or beaver glands.” It is statements like this that spoils the broth. While the Los Angeles school board was reticent about allowing Oliver to exercise his culinary talents in the kitchen, one school agreed to let Oliver teach a science class about food. These kids were sorely in need of some education, considering that some thought honey comes from bears and chocolate is pumped from a chocolate lake. Oliver’s science class, though, came down to frightening students away from processed foods with a nonsensical demonstration. “Do you know what is in your ice-cream sundae?” Oliver asked the class. Out came a blender and in went a mix of live lac bugs, human
30 CAnadian Chemical News
january 2011
hair and feathers. Surely beaver glands would have been thrown in had they been available. Let’s start with the shellac, a secretion of the lac bug that in a purified form can indeed be applied as a coating on the candy topping that decorates sundaes. But implying that chopped live insects are an ingredient in sundaes is ridiculous. Here, the reference is to cookie dough that may be found in some ice creams and is often formulated with L-cysteine, an amino acid that improves texture. This compound can be readily isolated from the mix of amino acids produced by chemically breaking down proteins. Indeed, both hair and feathers are composed of proteins and can serve as the raw materials for the production of L-cysteine. These days, cysteine is actually made by a fermentation process, but its origin is really irrelevant. What matters is what the final product is. And L-cysteine is a harmless, approved food additive. On to the beaver glands. Jamie debuted this piece of puffery on the Late Show with David Letterman. David has been sworn at by Cher, instructed on the use of cucumbers in the bedroom by Dr. Ruth Westheimer and has had to endure exposure to a variety of excreta from his animal guests. But rarely has he expressed the kind of shock we saw when Oliver blurted out that cheap strawberry syrup and vanilla ice cream can contain beaver anal glands. Audience reaction mirrored Letterman’s and the episode triggered predictable exchanges on the Internet expressing outrage. Some people wondered about how
By Joe Schwarcz
many beavers sacrificed their lives to produce that pint of ice cream in the fridge. The answer is none. But it is true that when beavers are trapped for their pelt two small glands near their anus that produce a territorial marker called castoreum are removed and their contents extracted with alcohol for commercial use. A few parts per million of purified castoreum may be one of the ingredients included under ‘natural flavour’ on a jam or ice cream label. But that’s a long way from mixing beaver glands into ice cream. So we have an interesting philosophical question here. Does the end justify the means? Is it acceptable to improve people’s diet by evoking the yuck factor through misleading information? I wonder what Oliver thinks about drinking the mammary gland extract of a cow? Or eating the ovum of a chicken? It’s also interesting to note that while Oliver was terrifying Letterman with prospects of beaver glands in his ice cream, he was cooking mussels. Have you seen what raw mussels look like? Beaver glands appear positively charming next to this slimy tissue. If you want to worry about something in ice cream, worry about the high sugar and fat content. As far as the beaver glands go, well, obsessing about them is, let us say, anal. Joe Schwarcz is the director of McGill University’s Office for Science and Society. Read his blog at chemicallyspeaking.com.