Ten years ago, a young Montreal student, Nivatha Balendra, watched with horror on television the images of the burning oil convoy in Lac-Mégantic. She was shocked by the loss of life, but also by the environmental disaster caused by the oil spill. July 6, 2013 was therefore the driving force that led her to undertake scientific research, which resulted in the identification of new microbes that can naturally disperse oil, in order to facilitate cleaning. Founder of a company that uses these discoveries, she remembers for The duty that moment which was a turning point in his life.
“It marked me,” she said in an interview. It was the first time that a tragic accident of this magnitude had happened so close to us. »
But the railway disaster also aroused a curiosity in her.
The one who was studying at the Marianopolis College in Montreal at the time wanted to know more about oil spills and the methods used to clean up and restore polluted sites. The 17-year-old student had a shock: it was then necessary to use chemicals – and sometimes even to burn the hydrocarbons – except that these… also damage the environment. ” It does not make sense. »
Nivatha Balendra started thinking about an internship she did when she was in high school as part of the “Apprentis en biosciences” program at the Armand-Frappier center at INRS. In the lab of microbiologist Éric Déziel, she studied bacteria that produce natural ingredients that make bubbles and foam — called biosurfactants.
“The connections started to form in my head. »
A science fair project
That’s what led to his CEGEP science fair project: combining that learning by identifying new types of microorganisms and testing them to see if they produce biosurfactants — not all of them have that property — which can be used to clean up oil spills in an environmentally friendly way. But she needed a laboratory “ready to accept the presence of a CEGEP student for months,” she recalls. She turned again to Éric Déziel, “a world leader in biosurfactants”. He accepted.
As these microbes are often found in the sub-layers of the soil, she collected soil samples in her own backyard, but also along the St. Lawrence River. “Microbes made in Montreal! she says, laughing. His quest for new biosurfactant-producing microbes paid off. “I found some in a few months. It was quick”, surprisingly, relates Mme Balendra.
Surfactants “reduce the surface tension on a material,” like petroleum. They can be used as a “dispersing agent”, or to break the material (here, hydrocarbons) into smaller particles, which makes it lighter and therefore easier to degrade or clean.
But regular surfactants are chemical or ecosynthetic, the latter mostly containing palm oil or petroleum derivatives. Not hers, she says proudly, and they’re biodegradable.
Her work has been recognized with numerous awards, including the Young Scientists Award from the World Economic Forum, which she also attended.
in business
She was encouraged to commercialize her discoveries. After also seeing the scale of the oil sands deposits in Alberta, she realized the magnitude of the industry’s needs, she says. “But I was 18 and didn’t know how to start a business. »
Then she went through a personal ordeal: a diagnosis of cancer during her second year at university. This got her thinking about the importance of non-toxic ingredients.
“I also realized how short life is,” says the survivor.
This was the impetus to go into business, with the help of Canada’s Women in Cleantech Challenge in 2019.
Nivatha Balendra’s company, called Dispersa, primarily uses research from the Science Fair. However, it is not currently intended for cleaning up contaminated sites, but creates organic ingredients using the power of bacteria, which are used by various industries to manufacture a host of cleaning and body care products. They should be on the market within two years, she hopes.
“All this would not have been possible without the catalyst that was Lac-Mégantic,” she concludes, pensive