March | mars 2011 • Vol.63, No./no 3
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
From smokestack to scum:
Capturing carbon with algae Battery booster
+
Meet B.C. biotech's founding mother
www.accn.ca
Chemical
“ Green, Clean and Sustainable”
Canada
Seminar and 2011 SCI/CIC Awards Dinner
Thursday, March 24, 2011 | 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. Featured speakers include Richard Paton and Bob Masterson representing the Chemistry Industry Association of Canada (CIAC); Rui Resendes, GreenCentre Canada; Murray McLaughlin, Sustainable Chemistry Alliance; and Craig Crawford, Ontario BioAuto Council. Join us to participate in the seminar series and to celebrate the success of the 2011 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.
“It’s Chemistry, Eh!?” Announcing International Year of Chemistry contest. As part of the International Year of Chemistry middle and high school students are eligible to win $2,500 towards further education just by submitting a three-minute chemistry-themed video.
Contest opens February 1, 2011 – April 22, 2011. Winners will be announced June 3, 2011. For a full list of contest rules and details visit www.iyc2011.ca
Contents
Features
12
How Julia Levy paved the path for B.C. biotech. By Anne Sasso Special Report for the
International Year of Chemistry
March | mars 2011 Vol.63, No./no 3
16
Better testing gives batteries a boost toward an alternative energy future. By Tyler Irving Pour obtenir la version française de cet article, écrivez-nous à magazine@accn.ca
Pond Biofuels
Departments 5
From the Editor
7
Guest Column
8
Chemical News
By Michael Brook
Canada’s top headlines in the chemical sciences and engineering
Reported and written by Tyler Irving
22
Cement and algae are a win-win in a carbon-constrained world. By Tyler Hamilton and Tyler Irving
29
Society News
30
Chemfusion By Joe Schwarcz
On the cover: Microalgal cells of the genus Chlorella are commonly found
in freshwater and are of interest for biofuel production.
march 2011 CAnadian Chemical News 3
Chemical Institute of Canada
Join the International Year of Chemistry Celebrations! This is a year long opportunity to educate the public on the wonders of chemistry. See planned activities and get involved now at www.iyc2011.ca
Gold Level Sponsors
94th Canadian Chemistry Conference and Exhibition Palais des congrès de Montréal • Montréal, Québec, Canada • June 5–9, 2011
Undergraduate and Graduate Student Poster Competitions Abstract deadline: Tuesday, March 15, 2011
For more information: www.csc2011.ca/program/student_competitions.html
FRom the editor
Executive Director
Roland Andersson, MCIC
Editor
Jodi Di Menna
WriteR
Tyler Irving, MCIC
Graphic Designers
Krista Leroux Kelly Turner
Society NEws
Bobbijo Sawchyn, MCIC Gale Thirlwall
W
Proofreader
hen politicians and environmentalists talk about a greener future that includes alternative energy sources, biofuels and carbon capture, scientists and engineers are liable to cringe at the many details that are taken for granted. In this issue we look at the nitty gritty behind two highly touted players in the green movement: algae and batteries. In our algae-to-biofuels story we see how one Ontario cement manufacturer is offsetting its significant carbon dioxide emissions by feeding them to algae, which can be used for biofuels. We’ve included a couple of sidebars to that story that put in context the technical realities behind using algae for biofuels, a solution that to the general public seems so simple. In our Q and A, we talk to Jeff Dahn of Dalhousie University about the high expectations placed on lithium-ion batteries for things like electric hybrid cars and wind and solar power, and the challenges chemists face in meeting them. In our profile of Julia Levy, a remarkable scientist and businesswoman, we continue our special series for the International Year of Chemistry that highlights the significant contributions of five Canadian women to the chemical sciences.
I hope you enjoy the read!
Anne Campbell, MCIC
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
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Subscription Rates Go to www.accn.ca to subscribe or to purchase single issues. The individual non-CIC member subscription price for 2011 is $100 CDN. The institutional subscription price for 2011 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.
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guest column
Environment Canada Gets It, but Doesn’t Have the Time to Get It Right By Michael Brook
T
here are few things that focus one’s attention like a headline suggesting your work will be terminated by legislation. So I took notice when, in 2008, Environment Canada proposed to “remove from commerce” the small cyclic silicones D4, D5 and D6 (D = Me2SiO) (ACCN Nov/Dec 2008). If enacted, several industries in Canada and my research program could have been shut down. Regulators such as Environment Canada (EC) do a difficult balancing act. They must consider needs of industry and non-governmental organizations, fulfill their legal obligations, and make decisions that protect and improve the environment. EC must achieve these targets within 24 months once a compound investigation is initiated. In the case of the small cyclic silicones, EC was mostly responsive to the comments made by stakeholder groups. Since 2008, D6 was removed from the list, and D5 is the first compound ever to be submitted to an external board review. Cyclic silicones were initially identified for special examination because hydrophobicity can be associated — as with PCBs — with partitioning from water into organisms, leading to an increase in levels in the food chain. Such compounds can reach levels that may cause harm to the environment. D4 is nothing like PCBs, as shown by data generated in the field. EC raised concerns about environmental D4 because of their application of a biodistribution model. They have not publicly responded to concerns by the Canadian author of the model that it is being used incorrectly.
The proposed regulation for D4, published this January, calls for limits in industrial effluent of 17.3 ppb. By contrast, the limit of arsenic permitted by the city of Toronto is 1,000 ppb (EC was unable to direct me to a website showing the federal limits). Unfortunately, the proposed low limits for D4 are based in part on an incorrect interpretation of the published literature and, surprisingly, appear to ignore EC’s own data. In August 2010, EC provided data from six municipal wastewater sites showing that current concentrations of D4 both entering and leaving the wastewater plants are already well below the concentration limits now being called for. It costs money to implement regulations. Canadians, including scientists and engineers, are generally happy to pay the price when a real improvement will result. However, there is no evidence that the proposed D4 regulation will have any positive impact on the environment, although it will impose an economic penalty on D4 use in Canada. Why should we care? I continue to be exercised on this point because people are making decisions about my livelihood based on incomplete or inappropriate application of the available science. Silicones are among the first of many compounds to be subjected to this analysis: ironically, with a good data set available. EC may be forced to make even worse decisions — perhaps with the compounds you use — in cases where they don’t have good data and don’t have time to collect it. EC needs to be given the tools to do a proper job and within a reasonable timeframe. It is inappropriate to start a time-limited regulatory process in the absence of appropriate substantive data on the impact on the environment of a given compound. Please write Peter Kent, Minister of the Environment (minister@ec.gc.ca), suggesting a sciencebased ministry needs to make decisions based on good science. Michael Brook is a Professor of Chemistry and Chemical Biology at McMaster University who wrote Silicon in Organic, Organometallic and Polymer Chemistry, Wiley, 2000. Most of his research focuses on silicones. Want to share your thoughts on this article? Write to us at magazine@accn.ca
march 2011 CAnadian Chemical News 7
Nanotechnology
Butterfly Wings Inspire Anti-Counterfeit Devices Plasmonic devices are made by punching nano-scale holes in thin sheets of metal, imitating the patterns on the wings of the South American Blue Morpho butterfly (left). The technology could soon replace holograms as anti-counterfeit devices on banknotes.
Landrock, along with his supervisor Bozena Kaminska, were studying plasmonic materials as possible coatings for solar cells. However, once they realized that the unique light-bending properties could be used to deter counterfeiters, they pioneered a process to mass-produce them. This consisted of using a focused ion beam to create a master die, which is then used to print thousands of tiny plasmonic devices. Because the holes are so tiny, it’s almost impossible to reverse-engineer the devices and make a counterfeit die. The technology has already given rise to a spin-off company, NanoTech Security Corp., which is negotiating with several world banks and banknote suppliers. “The banks are hungry for new technology, because their main security features are things like holograms, which are already on everything now,” says Landrock. “We were the first ones to actually manufacture these on a large scale.” If all goes well, Landrock says he thinks we might see the devices on banknotes as early as 2012.
Law and Policy
Canadian Manufacturers Protected by Tighter Phthalate Restrictions The Canadian government’s latest move to restrict the use of phthalates in products meant for children probably won’t have much effect on the plastics industry. The restrictions, announced in January, will affect six phthalates commonly used as plasticizers (softening agents) in many plastic products. Concentrations of DBP (dibutyl phthalate), BBP (benzyl butyl phthalate) and DEHP (di 2-ethylhexl phthalate) will now be limited to 1,000 mg/kg in all products for children, while DINP (diisononyl phthalate), DNOP (di-n-octyl phthalate), and DIDP (diisodecyl phthalate) are limited to 1,000 mg/kg in products for children under four years old. According to Health Canada, research suggests that these chemicals “may cause health effects in young children when soft vinyl toys and child care articles are sucked or chewed.” Marion Axmith, of the Canadian Plastics Industry Association, notes that a voluntary ban on the use of phthalates in products intended to be mouthed by children
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MARS 2011
has been in place for over a decade, and that the new regulations will affect mainly imports. “This legislation really gives Canadian manufacturers a degree of protection from products coming from other countries that may not have as strict environment health and safety regulations,” she says. Steve Risotto, of the American Chemistry Council (which also represents many Canadian companies) agrees that the ban should have little negative impact for Canadian companies. “This step by Health Canada is based on 'precaution' and not on any evidence of harm,” he says. “While there is a large body of scientific evidence that supports the continued safe use of phthalates, we welcome further research and scientific investigation into their safety.”
SFU Media relations
Quick — what do a butterfly and a banknote have in common? Maybe not much right now, but thanks to a B.C. researcher and entrepreneur, the same phenomenon that makes a butterfly’s wing a brilliant blue could soon make your $20 bill harder to counterfeit. Engineer Clint Landrock became interested in plasmonic meta-materials while doing research at Simon Fraser University. These consist of extremely thin (5 to 200 nanometres) metal sheets perforated with holes ranging from 30 to 200 nanometres (nm) in diameter. The holes themselves are spaced 350 to 800 nm apart, corresponding with the wavelengths of visible light. Specific photons can resonate with free electrons on the surface of the metal between the holes, creating what’s called surface plasmonic resonance. The resonating light is eventually transmitted or reflected back out as a beam of one pure colour. The phenomenon is also responsible for the bright blue iridescent wings of the Blue Morpho butterfly of Central America.
Chemical News
Canada's top headlines in the chemical sciences and engineering Fundamentals
Business Briefs Potash producer Mosaic Co. is preparing for life as an independent company. Majority-owner Cargill Inc. is selling off its 64 per cent stake in Mosaic in a deal worth $24 billion. Mosaic operates three large potash mines in Saskatchewan and is the province’s second-largest producer of the commodity. Since the company is headquartered in the U.S., the provincial and federal governments will be powerless to block any potential foreign takeovers, as they did with S askatchewan-based Potash Corp. last fall. TransCanada Corp has secured commitments from oil producers in the Bakken region of the northwestern U.S. to ship crude through its proposed Keystone XL pipeline. The deal will require a $140 million extension of the $7 billion line, which was originally conceived to bring oil from Hardisty, Alta. to a key hub in Cushing, Okla., and from there to refineries on the U.S. Gulf Coast. Opposition to Keystone XL has been strong among U.S. environmentalists and lawmakers due to the Canadian oil sands’ reputation as a source of “dirty oil.” The fact that the line will now also carry 65,000 barrels per day of American oil from the Bakken may increase the project’s chances of being approved. Woodland Biofuels of Mississauga, Ont. has announced funding of $12 million that it will use to build its first demonstration plant for producing cellulosic ethanol from renewable wastes. The money came from the provincial government’s Ontario Emerging Technologies Fund (OETF), the private equity firm Investeco Capital, and a private investor. The company is built around a patented Catalyzed Pressure Reduction™ (CPR™) technology, a form of gasification that it claims will produce sustainable fuels from various types of waste, including pulp and paper, agricultural, and municipal. The plant will be located at the Bioindustrial Innovation Centre, in the University of Western Ontario's Sarnia-Lambton Research Park. Canadian Nano Technologies (Canano) has been purchased by Arkansas-based NanoMech, Inc. Canano developed a unique gas condensation process to produce pure metal nanoparticles that is considered an improvement on other nanoparticle production processes.The technology will be used to make nanoparticles for NanoMech’s line of additives, coatings and coating deposition systems for industries ranging from printed circuit boards to water filtration to antibacterial coatings.
New NMR Technique Solves Oxygen Puzzle Imagine trying to put together a puzzle when a quarter of its pieces are invisible. That has more or less been the situation faced by chemists using nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy to study large proteins. The technique easily detects three of the four basic building blocks of life: hydrogen, carbon and nitrogen. The fourth, oxygen, had remained elusive until a team led by Gang Wu, professor of chemistry at Queen’s University, tackled the problem. When exposed to a strong magnetic field, the atomic nuclei of elements with odd numbers of either protons or neutrons give off energy in the form of radio waves. In the case of oxygen, however, the only stable odd-numbered isotope (17O) has a nuclear spin that is quadropolar, rather than dipolar, as is the case for 1H, 13C, and 15N.This makes the signal extremely hard to detect. Wu’s team used three methods to crank up the volume. First they attached small molecules enriched with 17O to the larger protein. Then, they tweaked their radio receivers to be more sensitive to the isotope’s characteristic signal. Finally, they brought their protein to the National Ultrahigh-Field NMR Facility for solids in Ottawa, in order to expose it to a magnetic field 500,000 times stronger than that of the earth. The technique works well enough in the solid state, but surprisingly, it works even better when the protein of interest is in solution. That’s because the large proteins that slowly tumble in solution actually give a sharper NMR signal than fast-moving ones. This fortuitous fact means that the technique can be used in real time. “Because this now works in solution, we can use this to monitor chemical reactions,” says Wu. “We’re hoping to be able to detect reaction intermediates, especially enzymatic reaction intermediates.”
march 2011 CAnadian Chemical News 9
Pharmaceuticals
Business
Bubbling Silver-Based Wound Nanoparticles Dressing Approved For Sale Offer Better Lung Cancer Treatment
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Safety Tiny bubbles of CO2 can spread out drug-laden nanoparticles (shown in green) on the surface of lung tissue, as seen in this photomicrograph. The scale bar (red) is 31.93 micrometres across.
MARS 2011
Fire at OilSands Upgrader Reduces Capacity A fire at a coking unit in northern Alberta reduced capacity at one of Canada’s most significant oil sands installations in January. The fire broke out January 6 at one of the four coke drums at the Horizon installation, owned and operated by Canadian Natural Resources Ltd. (CNRL). Five workers suffered injuries; all have now recovered. A stop-work order was issued by Alberta Occupational Health and Safety. On February 1, workers regained access to the damaged coker, but a stop-use order remained in effect. The cause of the fire is still unknown, but on January 25, CNRL invoked the legal clause of “force majeure,” freeing it from production contracts due to circumstances beyond its control. Officials said that electronic communication with two of the four coke drums had been established, and visual inspections raised hopes that the damage was minimal. However, even if two of the four units can be restarted, the plant will only be at half its original 110,000 barrels/day capacity, which represented 10 per cent of Canada’s total synthetic oil production. As of press time, the investigation had revealed that the fire started when a valve was opened while the drum was active, but why this happened was still unknown.
Warren Finlay
Anyone who has used an inhaler knows that the best way to get drugs into your lungs is as an aerosol. With cancer drugs, however, controlled release is key; The drug must destroy tumour cells while leaving regular lung tissue alone. Now, researchers at the University of Alberta have taken a big step toward solving this problem. Their secret weapon? Bubbles. The team, which includes oncologist Wilson Roa, pharmacist Raimar Löbenberg, and mechanical engineer Warren Finlay, have created tiny particles of poly butyl cyanoacrylate that are loaded with the chemotherapy drug doxorubicin. They use a freeze-drying technique to embed these nanoparticles into slightly larger carrier particles made of a specially formulated excipient (a pharmacologically inactive substance used as a carrier.)The excipient contains an agent that forms CO2 when it contacts the lung tissue, a nano-scale version of the effervescent action in many antacid medications. The bubbles spread out the nanoparticles, distributing them evenly in the lung. While all cells take up the drug-laden particles, doxorubicin seems to have a stronger effect on cancer cells than on noncancerous ones. Experiments in mice have shown that the bubbling particles perform much better than other methods of drug delivery, such as nonbubbling particles or injection, which don’t always reach the cancerous cells. In fact, the lung tumours are completely gone after only a few treatments with the new particles. “We’re probably going to take a little more animal toxicity data but basically it’s ready to go into human trials,” says Finlay.
When it comes to dressing wounds, the expression “silver lining” can be taken literally. Health Canada recently approved a home-grown, silver-based technology that will improve the antimicrobial properties of gauze, bandages and a host of other medical supplies. The antimicrobial properties of silver have been known for a long time. However, it’s not the metal itself, but rather the ions of silver (Ag3+, Ag2+ and Ag1+) that are the active ingredient. Most silver-based antimicrobial products (including certain brands of socks) are impregnated with silver nanoparticles, the hope being that corrosion in contact with the body will release these ions from the metal. Other products use soluble silver compounds, such as silver sulfadiazine. Edmonton-based Exciton is using a different approach. Their gauzes are coated with silver oxysalts (Ag7O8NO3) which provide controlled release of the optimum dose of silver ions. Although these salts were first discovered in 1804, until recently they had only been produced by electrochemical methods. “In my work, it was a purely chemical process,” says Stojan Djokic, the former Exciton researcher who pioneered the coatings. “It’s very simple aqueous chemistry, and you can do deposition straight from solution in less than five minutes.” The process allows the coating to be applied to medical devices of almost any shape. Like many medical products, Exciton’s oxysalt technology had to wait years for regulatory approval, which came first from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in 2009, and in early 2011 from Health Canada. The latest decision means that the product can now be marketed in Canada, providing a new tool for the treatment of serious burns and chronic wounds.
Chemical News
Canada's top headlines in the chemical sciences and engineering Climate Change
Is the Weyburn Carbon Storage Project Leaking?
Ecojustice
Strange algae blooms, unexplained animal deaths, and a bubbling pond in Weyburn, Sask. have touched off the latest round of controversy over the feasibility of carbon capture and storage (CCS).The story is illustrative of the public relations difficulties encountered by the technology. Weyburn is home to what’s billed as the world's largest CO2 storage project. Starting in 2000, CO2 from a coal gasification plant in North Dakota has been piped over 300 kilometres north and injected into an underground oil deposit owned by Canadian oil company Cenovus. The project is managed by the Petroleum Technology Research Centre (PTRC), a collaboration between government and industry groups. Much depends on the success of this first large-scale demonstration project: Alberta has already committed $2 billion to fund future CCS projects in the oil sands. In 2004, Cameron and Jane Kerr began noticing the aforementioned phenomena on their farm, which sits above the deposit. For the next six years, their complaints attracted little attention. In the summer of 2010, they paid an independent consultant to do a study of their land. The consultant found average CO2 concentrations in the soil of 23,000 ppm, which he characterized as “high.” Based on this, as well as the carbon isotope ratio of the gas, the consultant concluded that “the source of the high concentrations of CO2 in soils is clearly the anthropogenic CO2 injected into the Weyburn reservoir.” The results were publicized at a press conference in January. A week later, the PTRC released its own report, reacting to Lafleur’s claims. It states that both the concentration and isotope ratio of the carbon on the farm are similar to other soils in the area, and that both can be explained by natural, biogenic CO2. The organization also asserted that Lafleur’s report “contains technical errors, invokes undocumented data, and provides minimal to no information on scientific methods or analytical techniques.” Meanwhile, a third group, the Regina-based International Performance Assessment Centre for Geologic Storage of CO2 (IPAC-CO2) has waded into the dispute, announcing that it will undertake a comprehensive study that will attempt to get to the bottom of the conflicting reports. Despite the fact that IPAC-CO2 was set up with funding from Shell Canada, as well as the provincial and federal governments, CEO Carmen Dybwad is hopeful that her study will be seen as objective. “It’s going to be an open and transparent process,” she says. “It’s not finger pointing, it’s finding out the facts.” She is assembling experts and expects the study to be completed in “months, not years.” As of press time, the Kerr family had yet to comment on the IPAC study.
In a pond on Cameron and Jane Kerr’s farm in Weyburn, Sask., oily sheens appeared on the water’s surface (above) and gases bubbled up from the banks (left) in 2005. The Kerrs claim that leaking CO2 from a nearby CCS project is causing this and other strange phenomena on their farm.
Nuclear
Alternative Isotope Producers Receive Federal Funding Four Canadian groups racing to create alternative production methods for medical isotopes have received a collective cash injection of $35 million. The money will be split between the following groups: Advanced Cyclotron Systems Inc. (Richmond, B.C.); TRIUMF (Vancouver, B.C.); Canadian Light Source Inc. (Saskatoon, Sask.); and The Prairie Isotope Production Enterprise (Winnipeg, Man.) While the former two groups intend to produce isotopes using cyclotrons, the latter two submitted proposals using a less familiar linear accelerator-based technology. Watch for our continuing series on radioisotopes in our April and June issues for more of the story of how these groups and others are finding new methods for producing radioisotopes and developing new ways to do medical imaging in the face of Canada’s radioisotope shortage.
The Chemical News is reported and written by Tyler Irving. Want to share your thoughts on our news stories? Write to us at magazine@accn.ca
march 2011 CAnadian Chemical News 11
Special Report for the International Year of Chemistry
Seeing the Light As the founding mother of B.C. biotech, Julia Levy charted a path from drug discovery to commercialization and saved millions from blindness along the way. By Anne Sasso | Photo by Bob Herger
C
hance may favour the prepared mind, as Louis Pasteur once said. But it only leads to success when the prepared mind has the vision and drive to pursue the discoveries that serendipity places in its lap. For Julia Levy, chance encounters and unexpected changes in direction catalyzed a series of reactions that launched the Canadian biotech industry, developed a wonder drug and afforded her the opportunity to pursue her unrelenting passion for exciting science. Levy has a PhD in microbiology from the University College London but it’s her ability to find inspiration in her family’s ailments, partner with other scientists and explore the intersection of diverse fields to see the patterns of unfolding possibilities that have led to her success.
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Light Activation A passion for the outdoors and the rugged landscape of B.C.’s Gulf Islands led Levy and her husband, Edwin Levy, to buy a piece of land on remote Sonora Island in the late 1960s. As the family cleared the land to begin construction of a summer cabin, a chance encounter between her son and some giant hogweed (Heracleum mantegazzianum) resulted in angry, blistered skin. The dramatic reaction — compounds in the plant attack human tissue when activated by sunlight — intrigued Levy, then a professor of microbiology at the University of British Columbia. The incident set her on a career-defining path to develop light-activated drugs.
business | photodynamic drugs
A chance encounter between her son and some giant hogweed resulted in angry, blistered skin. The incident set her on a career-defining path to develop lightactivated drugs. By the 1980s, Levy had advanced her study of photodynamic processes and, while still teaching at UBC, had founded a company, Quadra Logic Technologies, with several UBC colleagues to commercialize diagnostic kits based on her work. Another chance encounter, this time in UBC’s chemistry department in 1982, caused her to change course. Levy gave a lecture on photodynamic therapy — her research using porphyrins and light to modify and destroy cells and tissue. Chemistry professor David Dolphin was in the audience. “I went down, introduced myself and told her that I thought that I could make much better molecules than she was able to purchase off the shelf,” he says. The collaboration blossomed, the research had cancer-fighting potential, Dolphin joined the company and they convinced it to switch gears to focus on developing a cancer treatment using photodynamic drugs.
“The complexity [of the science] was so enchanting to me … I just have the kind of mind that likes the big picture.” Years of research ensued. “The complexity [of the science] was so enchanting to me,” Levy says. Photodynamic therapy suited her, she says, because of the combination of physics, chemistry and biology. The collaboration with other scientists was stimulating. “It’s the excitement
march 2011 CAnadian Chemical News 13
Special Report for the International Year of Chemistry
of understanding more than just what had been in front of my nose,” she adds. “I love that broad learning, which is why I took to the drug development, too, because it’s complicated and multidisciplinary. I just have the kind of mind that likes the big picture.” Despite top notch science and some early clinical success, in 1992 everything imploded. The company’s commercial partners abandoned the projects, losing interest in the complexities inherent in photodynamic therapy. The company, now renamed QLT, was at a crossroads. It needed new focus and direction. Levy, it turned out, had just the thing — and she had her mother to thank for it.
Mother’s Legacy Throughout most of Levy’s early life, her mother, Dorothy Coppens, was the rock that kept her family fed, clothed and housed. Born in Singapore to a Dutch merchant banker and an English mother, Levy spent the first five years of her life in South East Asia. On the eve of World War II, Levy’s father, Guillaume Coppens, sent his wife and two girls to stay with relatives in Vancouver, Canada. He was soon captured by the Japanese and interned in Indonesia as a prisoner of war. Levy wouldn’t see her father again for seven years. By the time he rejoined his family in Canada, he was so debilitated by his ordeal that he was no longer able to support the family. Watching her mother travel to a foreign country and take control of her family’s destiny “made me realize that you can’t rely on the world to look after you,” Levy says. “My mother was perfectly constant as a mother and as a survivor; she was a great role model.” Unfortunately for Levy’s mother, she also held the key to QLT’s future success. Beginning in the mid-eighties, Dorothy began to lose her sight. She was afflicted with age-related macular degeneration (AMD), a debilitating disease in which unwanted blood vessels grow behind the retina, leaking blood and proteins that scar tissue and lead to blindness. The disease afflicts older adults and, according to the World Health
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“The biggest problem in science is saying, ‘Enough; this isn’t going to work; we’ve got to move on; change directions,’ … One of the great strengths that Julia brought was persuading QLT to move into this new, unknown area of photodynamic therapy.”
Organization, is the third leading cause of blindness in the world. Levy did what any scientist does when faced with the unknown: she educated herself on her mother’s disease. The information sat in her mind, composting, until one day when she was listening to an ophthalmologist give a conference lecture about treating tumours with photodynamic therapy. “It was during his talk that the penny dropped,” she says.
business | photodynamic drugs
“I thought, ‘Of course!’ Treating cancer’s tough and it would be hard to get an approval for it, but the eye is a lens. You can get light in there. You can quantify it and it’s very straightforward,” she says. “The biggest problem in science is when you are doing some research and you say, ‘Enough; this isn’t going to work; we’ve got to move on; change directions,’” Dolphin says. “One of the great strengths that Julia brought was persuading QLT to move into this new, unknown area of photodynamic therapy. And, of course, that was the saving grace in the end because [macular degeneration] was a disease for which there was no treatment.” Fast forward to the present, and Visudyne, the drug that Levy, Dolphin and their colleagues developed and brought to market has revolutionized the treatment of macular degeneration. According to QLT, the drug is approved in 80 countries and has been used in more than two million treatments around the globe. “QLT is one of the few companies in the world where a drug has been developed in a university and taken all the way to market by the people who discovered and developed it,” Dolphin says. “In our development of Visudyne there was, of course, a lot of serendipity — things that went well. But I think they went well because there were smart people like Julia looking after it. She had vision, foresight, scientific
prestige, academic prestige and, eventually, a lot of business prestige.” “My mother went blind from the condition that we developed the treatment for,” Levy says. “To feel that I have given her a legacy in a way was a wonderful, wonderful scientific achievement.”
New Directions QLT downsized, shutting down its basic research division in 2008. It was the sign to move on, Levy says. “My first love is science, still,” she says. QLT, with its success and profits, had ventured beyond the early-stage research and no longer satisfied Levy’s love of high-risk, high-reward science. She’s now assumed mentorship roles with start-up biotech companies across the country. Many of her new projects still bear QLT’s DNA, though. She’s excited about new photodynamic therapy drugs for acne applications being developed by Valocor Therapeutics, which is run by two of her former doctoral students. She’s helping another QLT alumnus, David Granville of viDA Therapeutics, because she loves his science. “He’s got some beautiful data,” she almost gushes. She splits her time between a pied à terre near Stanley Park in town and a retreat located at the windswept mouth of Desolation Sound in Lund, B.C. “It’s built for my husband and me,” she says. “We wanted to have a small footprint. It’s like an Indian longhouse — huge cedar poles, all glass, right on the ocean. Yeah, it’s a dream house.” “I have a great life,” she says. Whether it’s a walk along the rugged coastline with her dog Lucy, a Skype conference call with one of her biotech boards or working on her latest passion, a science-infused novel set 50 years in the future, each day brings a new adventure. With Levy as serendipity’s magnet, who knows where chance will take her next. Rest assured she’ll be prepared for whatever comes her way. Anne Sasso is a Canadian science writer based in Vermont. She has written about science for Discover, Backpacker and Smithsonian.com. She regularly profiles scientists for AAAS ScienceCareers.com.
march 2011 CAnadian Chemical News 15
Q A &
Building a Better Battery By compressing battery tests that normally take years into only a few weeks, the high precision charger (HPC) at Dalhousie University is kicking the development of next-generation batteries for electric vehicles and renewable energy into high gear. By Tyler Irving
A
nyone with a cell phone can appreciate what lithium-ion batteries have done for portable electronics: no “memory effect,” reliable performance, long life. But in a future that includes large scale wind and solar power installations and electric cars, these often-taken-for-granted powerhouses will have to live up to bigger and bigger expectations. Boosting the lifespan of lithium-ion batteries from a couple of years to a couple of decades is key, and scientists around the globe are finding ways to do this that could work. The trouble is, how can one test a 30-year lifespan in a matter of days? Dalhousie University’s Jeff Dahn, Canada Research Chair and the NSERC/3M Canada Ltd.’s Industrial Research Chair in Materials for Advanced Batteries and Materials Science, has the answer.
ACCN: Most people think of lithium-ion batteries in
their computer or cell phone. Are these batteries up to the challenge for things like electric cars and storing energy from wind or solar? J.D.: I think lithium-ion batteries are up to the challenge.
There are a number of things that need to be improved — costs needs to be reduced, the lifetime wants to be increased, especially for storing energy from wind or solar where you’d like the batteries to last 30 years or more — but I think those are problems that can be solved. ACCN: How do lithium-ion batteries work? J.D.: Lithium-ion batteries use intercalation compounds
as electrode materials. An intercalation compound is a compound that has atomic-scale voids inside its structure that little atoms like lithium can fit inside. Because those voids are pre-existing, when a lithium-ion battery operates, lithium-ions are transferred from one electrode to the other, causing virtually no structural damage to the electrode materials. This is one of the reasons it has a high charge-discharge cycle life.
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MARS 2011
PhD student Aaron Smith checks up on the High Precision Charger (HPC) that he built, along with Chris Burns and their supervisor, Jeff Dahn. The 60-channel device was assembled from off-the-shelf precision current supplies and metering equipment. It can rapidly screen multiple battery prototypes simultaneously in order to accurately predict which ones will last the longest.
Chemistry | batteries
Milos Tosic
ACCN: You mentioned that increasing the lifetime of
lithium-ion batteries is important for things like wind energy; what determines how long a battery will last?
ACCN: So you did it with off-the-shelf equipment, but
J.D.: The user uses a lithium-ion battery how he or she wants.
J.D.: A lot of people in the battery industry have realized
You might have an application like a power tool, where the battery would undergo five or six charge-discharge cycles through a workday. On the other hand, in an application like a computer, you might discharge only for an hour and then not use your laptop again for a number of days. The question is: What is it that leads to the decline of the capacity to store energy of a lithium-ion battery? Is it the number of charge-discharge cycles, or is it the time that the battery has been charged after initial assembly? What you learn is that there are a number of parasitic reactions that are going on inside a lithium-ion battery all the time. Whether the battery is being charged or discharged or just sitting there, these reactions are happening. So there’s a pretty strong component to the failure of a lithium-ion battery that’s basically just time-dependent. These parasitic reactions involve reactions between the charged electrode materials — either the negative or the positive — and the electrolyte. And temperature has a huge impact on these parasitic reactions; they’re all exponentially activated so when you crank up the temperature, they go much faster.
the importance of the coulombic efficiency measurement, but they’ve always been limited by the testing equipment. If you’re trying to measure coulombic efficiency, you put on two identical cells and one of them has a coulombic efficiency of 99.7 per cent, and the other one has a coulombic efficiency of 100.1 per cent. Which is impossible. It’s just because of the error in the current controls of that equipment. So, the battery community basically threw up its hands and said, ‘It’d be nice to do it, but our equipment can’t do it, so therefore we’re not going to try to do it.’ I was trying to think of a way that as university researchers we could make an impact on lithium-ion batteries, which are going to need to have a lifetime of 30 years for grid energy storage. How the heck do you tell something’s going to last for 30 years unless you test it for 30 years? Well, these coulombic efficiency measurements can tell you the health of a battery pretty quickly, if you can measure it precisely enough.
ACCN: How do you measure the
rates of these reactions? J.D.: Coulombic efficiency is the ratio of the amount of charge obtained from the battery during the discharge, compared to the amount of charge that was stored in the battery during the charge. A perfect lithium-ion battery would have a coulombic efficiency of exactly 1.0000000. That would occur if there are none of these parasitic reactions that I’m speaking about. So if it is possible to measure the coulombic efficiency very accurately, one can probe for the presence of these parasitic reactions at a very fine scale.
you’re the first ones to put it all together?
ACCN: And nobody else has a device like this? J.D.: At this exact stage that’s the case. I first talked about it
in August of 2009. At that point we weren’t quite finished building it all but we had prototypes and preliminary data. When I spoke about it, there was quite a bit of interest and three companies started efforts to build one. I just heard from one of them. They have their prototype close to being ready, they’ve given it a test drive, and they can measure to a precision of 0.0016 per cent. That’s about a factor of seven better than what we can do with our first-generation machine. Our second-generation machine will be able to match theirs. But my hope is that someone will make available this kind of instrumentation at a very affordable cost for everybody in the industry to use. ACCN: How have you used it so far? J.D.: We collaborated with 3M and a battery producer to
test electrolyte additives in commercial lithium-ion cells. The battery producer knows already the cycle life of these cells with various combinations of electrolyte additives, which are added to the electrolyte to slow down the parasitic reactions between the electrolyte and the electrode
march 2011 CAnadian Chemical News 17
The electrolyte additive business at this moment really is a black art, there’s only a few that are well understood. Again, I can’t think of a better way to learn about the impact of electrolyte additives than having a rapid way to screen the various combinations. ACCN: : Do you think the general public takes batteries
for granted? J.D.: The general public definitely takes batteries for granted,
and I’ll tell you why: it’s because they work really well. For your phone or a computer, you might [at some point] need a new battery, but until that point the thing always works. You just have to put it on the charger from time to time, and it does its job perfectly. Most people don’t have any real perception of how it works, because they don’t have to think about it. ACCN: What drives you to this kind of research ? J.D.: I think the goal here is to really see renewable energy take
materials. In experiments that lasted about two weeks, we screened 20 different electrolyte additive combinations in triplicate. We were able to show a one-to-one correlation to the coulombic efficiency; the closer it was to 1.0000000, the better the long-term cycle life was. The cycle life testing had taken over a year for the battery producer to accumulate. So it was kind of like a proof of principle experiment. That’s the whole goal, so that researchers like me can make a change to the cell and stick it on a device like this, and know in a couple of weeks whether it’s going to have an impact in cycle life improvement on a many-year time frame. ACCN: Coulombic efficiency tells you only whether
or not it’s working; it doesn’t describe exactly what’s going on inside the battery. How do you get to that? J.D.: Well, the key point at the moment is that nobody really
knows what particular additives are doing. I have a chart on my office wall, which I’ve put there because it was impossible to view on my computer screen. It’s a big chart of the electrolyte components — the primary solvents, the electrolyte solvents, and the additives — in about 80 different types of lithium-ion batteries. You need about four feet by three feet on your wall at 12 point font to show the whole thing. That’s because there’s so many different types of electrolyte additives that various battery makers are using.
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MARS 2011
its role in the world on a big scale. Lithium-ion batteries are the best way to store wind and solar. People say that battery storage is too expensive. I counter with: what if the battery lasted 100 years? Then you could pay a big up-front cost. And this is not outrageous, because all these degradation reactions I speak of accelerate with temperature, so all you have to do is just bury the lithium-ion battery under the ground. It will sit there at 10 degrees C, almost the optimum temperature for it, and last a long time. I bet current technology would last 30 years if it was at 10 degrees C all the time. ACCN: How long will it take for us to invent the
atteries that we’ll need for electric vehicles b and renewable energy storage? J.D.: You know, you get this all the time as a battery scien-
tist: people talk about Moore’s Law for computers, where everything gets better and smaller and faster by a factor of two every eighteen months. Then they say, “You battery guys took from 1991 to 2011 to improve the lithium-ion battery by a factor of two. You guys must be dumb!” It’s not that we’re dumb, it’s that the tests take a long time. If we can speed up the testing turnaround, maybe we can start to approach more Moore’s-like behaviour.
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Call for papers Opens March 15, 2011 - closes May 31, 2011
Innovation, Industry and Internationalization 61st Canadian Chemical Engineering Conference LOndon, ontario, Canada
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DU 23 AU 26 OctobRE 2011 www.csche2011.ca 20 L’Actualité chimique canadienne MARS 2011
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Cement and Algae: Together at Last
Cement production gives it, biofuel-from-algae has gotta have it: copious amounts of CO2. And an Ontario company is cashing in on the match made in heaven. By Tyler Hamilton and Tyler Irving
A
mixture of hot gas rises out of a flue stack at the St. Marys Cement plant about 50 kilometres west of Waterloo. But not all the CO2-rich exhaust is vented to the open air. Some is redirected through a 15-centimetre thick pipe connected to the side of the stack. The pipe carries the gas into a high-tech facility where a species of algae from the neighbouring Thames River uses photosynthesis to absorb the carbon dioxide and release oxygen in return. “It’s a small model of what a big full-scale facility could be,” says Martin Vroegh, environment manager with St. Marys Cement Inc., headquartered in Toronto. The algae project, which went live in the fall of 2009, is believed to be the first in the world to demonstrate the capture of CO2 from a cement plant.
The idea, Vroegh explained, is to turn CO2 into a commodity rather than treat it as a liability. The CO2-consuming algae will be continually harvested, dried using waste heat from the plant, and then burned as a fuel inside the plant’s cement kilns. Alternatively, the green goop can be processed into biofuels for the company’s truck fleet. In essence, St. Marys wants to grow its own fuel in a way that's constantly recycling the CO2 emissions from its plant, allowing it to produce what could become “green” cement. The company, part of Brazilian conglomerate Grupo Votorantim, is preparing for a carbon-constrained future that won’t treat cement makers and other energy-intensive industries kindly. That’s because producing 100 Pond Biofuels
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Chemical Engineering | biofuels
Two of the four 8,000 litre tanks inside Pond Biofuel’s domed production shed act as bioreactors, carefully controlling conditions like temperature, pH, and light to keep algae dividing at their maximum rate. The other two tanks are the harvest tank (middle left) where the algal broth is collected, and the return tank (furthest tank) that is used to collect water during the de-watering step, which is then returned to the reactors.
march 2011 CAnadian Chemical News 23
Algal bioreactors quickly produce large amounts of algae, which is eventually dried and burned as biofuel. The vats glow with red-spectrum light, considered to be most beneficial for algae growth. The CO2 for the algae growth comes from the smokestack of the adjoining cement plant, which reduces its carbon footprint.
Algae Blooms in the Age of Biofuels Excitement over using algae to produce fuel dates back to the oil crisis of the 1970s. At that time, both the U.S. and Japan invested millions of dollars in research programs. The idea was to find species with high oil content, fast growth rates, and an ability to resist competition from other microbes in outdoor ponds. Unfortunately, these qualities rarely manifest themselves in a single species. By the mid-1990s, algae research for However, algae have found niche applications in other markets. Some marine and salt-tolerant species are grown as sources of beta-carotene, astaxanthin, and other nutraceuticals. Algae are also used to produce omega-3 and -6 fatty acids for enriching other food products. Algal biomass is even marketed on its own for alleged health-giving properties. Today, new technologies for genetic manipulation have given rise to hope that the perfect species for algal biofuel can be engineered, rather than discovered. In 2009 Exxon Mobil teamed up with famed geneticist Craig Venter to work on this very problem, and countless other algae startups have appeared all over the world. Some of these have made questionable claims of unrealistically high production rates; others have been secretive to the point of opacity. It’s still anyone’s guess as to when (and if) the next big breakthrough will happen.
By Tyler Irving
24 L’Actualité chimique canadienne
MARS 2011
Pond Biofuels
fuel had largely ground to a halt.
Chemical Engineering | biofuels
tonnes of cement releases an average of 83 tonnes of CO2, according to the International Energy Agency. Considering cement is sold for a couple of hundred dollars a tonne, even a conservative $30 price per tonne of CO2 would add nearly 15 per cent to the final price tag. “The amount of exposure to carbon pricing we face as an industry is very high,” says Vroegh. “If we want to be around tomorrow we have to be sustainable. This project helps us achieve that.” It’s not the only cement company thinking this way. Two years ago cement giant Lafarge North America Inc. partnered with a Kingston-based company called Performance Plants, which had developed genetically-enhanced grasses and trees that could thrive on poor land. Lafarge planned to grow its own biomass fuel next to its cement plant in Bath, Ont. But the initiative hit a snag when Performance Plants ran out of money and closed. Inside the Production Validation Facility (PVF), located on the edge of a pond at the St. Marys Cement plant in St. Marys, Ont., workers grow hundreds of litres of algae in huge vats called bioreactors. The tiny organisms thrive on little more than artificial light and the CO2 from the plant’s smokestack, and the dried algal biomass can itself be burned as biofuel. In this night view of the plant, the small, white, domed PVF shed can be seen at the extreme right; the entire building glows almost as brightly as the lights of the plant itself.
St. Marys began exploring the idea of capturing CO2 with algae around the same time. Donald “Demi” Rogers, former vice-chairman of St. Marys and member of the co-founding Rogers family, was part of the same shooting club as Terry Graham, chairman of Toronto start-up Pond Biofuels. That gave Graham an “in” with the cement maker, and the two companies began talking. St. Marys needed a way to reduce the CO2 emissions from its operations; Pond Biofuels needed a high-profile industrial partner to test the algae biofuels technology its founders, Max Kolesnik and Steven Martin, had developed. Convinced the approach was sound, the cement maker decided two years ago to make a strategic investment in Pond Biofuels. With some financial backing from the Ontario Centres of Excellence, the two companies ventured ahead on a pilot project. “This is a made-in-Ontario solution to a global problem,” says Vroegh. Algae technology has emerged in the past few years as a potentially better approach to producing biofuels. We don’t eat algae, so there's no fuel-versus-food debate like that associated with corn ethanol. In fact, more than half of the biomass on the planet is algae. They grow fast — up to 30 times faster than some food crops — so over a year a half-hectare algae farm can absorb the same volume of CO2 as 200 hectares of mature trees. For this reason there are dozens of algae start-ups in the market, many focused on commercializing genetically-modified super algae that can produce renewable fuels, such as biodiesel and green jet fuel (see sidebar). Pond Biofuels, however, is among a smaller group of companies focusing on the needs of industry first, rather than on pure biofuel production. The purpose of the $4 million demonstration facility at the St. Marys plant is to show that the technology, which right now occupies 1,500 square feet, can be scaled up and profitably deployed. “To resolve the problem you have to have an industrial solution, not a laboratory solution,” says Graham. “In a laboratory you can control everything. But you can’t do that in the field.”
march 2011 CAnadian Chemical News 25
Two industrial fans (at right) direct the untreated smokestack gas from the neighbouring cement plant into a shed (left) where tanks of green algae feed on the CO2. The CO2 content of the smokestack gas is variable, but averages around 15-20 per cent. The cement kiln is visible in the background.
Algae: The High Maintenance Darling of Biofuel Feedstocks There are many ways to turn slimy, green algal biomass into fuel. It can be dried and burned outright, digested into biogas, or even used as feedstock for cellulosic ethanol production. But the most tantalizing research focuses on extracting oil (which can form up to 40 per cent of dry cell weight) from the algae and processing it into biodiesel. Unlike traditional oil crops (corn, soy, palm, etc.) algae do not compete with other uses, such as food. They can also grow on marginal land not suited to agriculture, and, under optimal conditions, Unfortunately, those optimal conditions are hard to come by; algae can only absorb so much sunlight before they get saturated and their growth rate plummets. They are also sensitive to temperature, pH, and competition
Pond Biofuels
Algal broth grows inside transparent tubes that were originally installed as a pilot project on the roof of the Pond Biofuels office in Scarborough, Ont. They have since been dismantled.
can double their numbers in hours.
from other organisms. Keeping the algae happy can cost a lot of energy, not to mention the effort it takes for filtering, drying, and oil extraction. Too often, the final product has less value than what was expended to get it in the first place. Still, many researchers hold out hope that the price of algae production will drop to the point of feasibility, especially if economic incentives for carbon sequestration (like carbon taxes or cap-and-trade) are added into the mix. In the meantime, rising oil prices are
The algae are grown in sophisticated “bioreactors” that are designed to achieve the right balance of light and CO2. The company has filed patents for its technology, including the automated processes for growing and harvesting the green stuff. Beyond that, Graham won’t go into detail for competitive reasons. Ultimately, both St. Marys and Pond Biofuels envision the entire flue stack stream being diverted to a much larger algae facility. Once the approach is demonstrated at a commercial scale, the hope is that industrial clusters across the continent will begin to take notice. “Personally, it’s nice to be working so closely on a project that can help change how CO2-intensive industries operate,” says Vroegh.
sure to accelerate the pace of research.
By Tyler Hamilton
This article has been reprinted with permission from the author. By Tyler Irving
26 L’Actualité chimique canadienne
MARS 2011
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Canadians in Paris A Canadian delegation led by CIC chair Hadi Mahabadi attended the official launch of the International Year of Chemistry at the headquarters of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) in Paris last January. The two-day inauguration event featured presentations from well-known scientists from different international organizations as well as an exhibition from chemical companies. The purpose of IYC2011 is to showcase chemistry’s contributions to the knowledge economy, protection of the environment, and better health; to build new partnerships for advancing chemistry for the betterment of human beings and society; and to spark the curiosity of every young student around the world. Furthermore IYC2011 is a year to celebrate women and chemistry, in acknowledgement of Marie Sklodowska Curie who was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry 100 years ago. Go to www.iyc2011.ca to find out more about the Canadian celebrations.
Conferences
roland andersson
Powwow in Paradise
As part of National Chemistry Week last October, the Toronto CIC Section and volunteers from the Chemistry Club at the University of Toronto Scarborough demonstrated some basic but interesting chemistry experiments for a group of five- to 12-year-olds. Held at a local library, approximately 35 kids and their parents came out for the event, which was aimed at engaging young people in science. “Hopefully we have planted the seeds for tomorrow’s Nobel laureates!” says Satyendra Bhavsar, chair of the Toronto CIC Section.
Subject Divisions
Workshop Highlights Opportunities in Pharmaceuticals By Ed Krol and David Palmer The second Western Canadian Medicinal Chemistry Workshop (WCMCW) was held September 24-26, 2010, at the University of Saskatchewan. The workshop gathered western Canadian researchers with an interest in a variety of areas of the pharmaceutical sciences, and provided training opportunities for postdoctoral, graduate and undergraduate researchers interested in the pharmaceutical sciences. There were 49 participants, including 26 graduate and undergraduate researchers. The workshop began with a Friday evening mixer and the weekend scientific program consisted of 15 oral presentations and 23 poster presentations. Six plenary speakers covered a variety of topics, and on Sunday morning a special presentation was made by Sultan Chowdhury of Xenon Pharmaceuticals who provided an overview of the pharmaceutical industry and discussed opportunities in the pharmaceutical industry in Canada.
With Honolulu’s Waikiki Beach as a backdrop, more than 12,000 registrants from 69 countries gathered at the sixth International Congress of Pacific Basin Societies, (Pacifichem) last December. Canada was the host country in 2010. In his welcoming remarks, conference chair Howard Alper noted that the opportunity to network with people from across the globe “is a remarkable advantage that Pacifichem offers the world: bringing together people of different cultures and different ways of doing things to potentially and actually collaborate and add value [to research] in a way that each of us cannot do ourselves.” The congress theme, “Chemistry, Technology and the Global Society,” played out in 235 aasymposia comprised of 6,923 oral and 5,921 poster presentations.
march 2011 CAnadian Chemical News 29
Chemfusion
One Woeful Wand By Joe Schwarcz
S
hould I or shouldn’t I? That was the question. Should I go ahead and cut a lemon in half, twirl a metallic wand around one of the two pieces, and then taste both to see if there was a difference in sourness? We of course are not talking about twirling any old metallic wand. We’re talking about a “Wellness Wand!” One that weaves its magic through the transmission of “zero point energy.” I enjoy practicing a little magic as a hobby. Every magician needs a magic wand, and I have several. I have wands that appear, wands that disappear, wands that glow, wands that shoot fireballs, wands that make sounds, wands that change colour, wands that dance and wands that turn into flowers. They accomplish these marvellous feats through clever gimmickry and ingenious engineering. But my most recent acquisition is a wand that purports to perform real magic! It comes with claims of being able to energize food and water, relieve headaches, shrink growths and make sour lemons taste sweet. I came across this miraculous item while surfing the web, looking for wands to add to my collection. I
30 L’Actualité chimique canadienne
hesitated at the price though. It was a whopping three hundred dollars! Hard to hide that on the credit card bill. But I quickly discovered that there was a whole world of zany “zero point energy” wand vendors out there, all competing with each other. One of them had a “special one-time introductory offer,” at the “incredibly low price” of fifty dollars, directed at “healers who are already doing energy work.” Since there was no requirement for the submission of “energy healer” credentials, I figured I could become a healer for a day and take advantage of the bargain basement price. Within a few days a package came in the mail, although it seemed a little short for a magic wand. Inside was what looked like a stainless steel pen. Had they sent the wrong item? A quick examination revealed that it wasn’t a pen at all, it was indeed my wand! Disappointed by its appearance, I grabbed the “instruction” sheet. I learned that “The Wellness Wand incorporates a new technology from Asia, which allows universal life energy, sometimes called zero point energy or Prana, to be focused through the tip of a stainless steel tube shaped
MARS 2011
like a pen.” It did this through a “combination of crystals, minerals and magnets combined in a special fusion process.” If you are in need of healing, I read, you move the wand in a clockwise circle for three minutes around the particular areas involved. You can also energize your drinking water, but it must be in an open bowl or in a glass container, since “plastic may block the energy of the wand.” Oh, those nasty plastics harming us again! You can also place the wand in the fridge to freshen food and make it last longer. And of course you should wand the food on your plate before eating it to raise its frequency. You wouldn’t want to eat low frequency food. Although it may not be a bad idea to eat food with less frequency. Zero point energy is a real concept that arises out of quantum mechanical considerations. Basically the idea is that even when matter is cooled to absolute zero, the lowest possible attainable temperature, it still retains a minimal amount of energy. Zero point energy cannot be harnessed and has absolutely nothing to do with magnets, crystals or healing wands. Zero energy, though, I can relate to. That’s the amount produced by my wand. And how about sweetening my lemon? I decided to forego that experiment. There are some experiments that do not need to be done to know what the results will be. Joe Schwarcz is the director of McGill University’s Office for Science and Society. Read his blog at chemicallyspeaking.com. Want to share your thoughts on this article? Write to us at magazine@accn.ca
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94th Canadian Chemistry Conference and Exhibition
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