In search of an affordable, natural way to clean up the over 4000 sites contaminated by diesel in Canada
Anirban Kundu
Civil Engineering, Ph.D. Candidate
SUPV: Prof. Subhasis Ghoshal, Ph.D.
Sustainable Industrial Processes and Manufacturing
Presently, there are several thousand diesel-contaminated sites in sub-Arctic Canada. Bioremediation is a sustainable approach that utilizes the soil鈥檚 indigenous bacteria to degrade diesel to less toxic intermediates; however, its success rate is inconsistent. Current bioremediation practices rely on nutrient addition but do not consider bio-accessibility limitations. By analyzing different sub-Arctic soils to identify correlations between bioremediation success and sub-micron microhabitats and soil microbiology, Anirban鈥檚 research addresses this gap. Future implications of this research will assist practitioners in using bioaccessibility in addition to nutrient requirements to increase bioremediation success