Development of a toxicity index for metabolites associated to chemical and/or biological degradation from petroleum products

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In Canada and in Quebec, the contamination of land by petroleum hydrocarbons represents a current and serious environmental problem. Although degradation techniques (chemical and/or biological) of petroleum products are widely used in the industry, previous studies had only evaluated the global achieved percentage of degradation. Ultimately, the decomposition of hydrocarbons will lead to the formation of fatty acids, alcohols and CO2, but more toxic metabolites than the original product can appear during the process. Therefore, it is of great importance to develop a toxicity index for the characterization of toxic metabolites associated to petroleum products degradation. Enutech inc. is a firm located in Pointe-Claire (Québec) and specialized in the characterization of contaminated land and groundwater as well as in soil remediation approaches. Enutech inc. uses a more and more acclaimed technique as in situ treatment to rehabilitate contaminated sites. However, this method for oil products degradation is not optimal and the toxicity impact of degradation generated metabolites from original hydrocarbons is not elucidated. In this context, Enutech inc. is interested in to evaluate the toxicity impact of metabolites related to different route of degradation during in situ treatment processing and to determine which degradation pathway generates the lowest toxicity impact. To solve this problematic of Enutech inc., this project consist to assess the toxicity of petroleum metabolites obtained from chemical and/or biological degradation techniques and then to develop a reliable toxicity index which can be used for in-situ contaminated land. Therefore, this partnership with my research laboratory at UQÀM is essential for Enutech inc., since we possess a strong expertise in the field of bioassay toxicity testing. During many years, we have been working in toxicity mechanisms of several pollutants for the development of risk assessment bioassays using algae and aquatic plants. The development of this reliable method will permit a rapid detection of toxicity induced by petroleum metabolites. Therefore, this project will allow the company to validate the safety of its decontamination techniques and accessing a new level of expertise.