São Paulo - Ontario: Soil and Water Remediation Consortium
1 Summary
This project addresses an extremely important problem in both Ontario and São Paulo, and worldwide. Hazardous chemicals are found in subsurface soil at many sites, a legacy of poor industrial waste disposal practices in the past. These sites are the direct source of contaminated surface water and groundwater that continues to pose a serious risk to human health and the environment. Contamination by hazardous organic substances often occurs around or within urban centres, affecting a large number of residents and commercial sites. Some of these sites become brownfields when industrial activity is discontinued, and their redevelopment may stall due to lack of technically and economically feasible methods for remediation of the persistent contaminants. Brownfields are a hidden danger for urban communities, especially where inadequate solid waste disposal or former industrial facilities existed. In the case of São Paulo, the early 1980’s led to a new cycle of economic reorientation and the increasing infrastructural difficulties caused the exodus of industries out of the mega-cities, leaving behind abandoned contaminated land that started attracting dwellers, creating slums and informal settlements. This cooperation between Brazil and Canada will improve the understanding and capacity of regulators, researchers, and consultants on the application and development of cleanup technologies that are specific for the peculiarities of contaminated sites.
2. Team
Dr. Cláudio Augusto Oller do Nascimento (PI, USP), is a Full Professor at the Polytechnic School at USP. He is the Coordinator of CEPEMA-USP and the coordinator of the INCT-EMA (National Institute of Science and Technology on Environmental Studies). He is the coordinator of project on Bioremediation with VALE and BNDES. He is a pioneer in Brazil in the field of neural network modeling and optimization of chemical processes. He has published more than 80 papers in indexed journals. He is coordinator of Chemical Engineering area in FAPESP. Head of Chemical Engineering Department of Polytechnic School, University of São Paulo.
Dr. Juliana Gardenalli de Freitas (UNIFESP) is a Professor in the Department of Biological Sciences, Environmental Sciences Sector. She holds a PhD from the University of Waterloo in Earth and Environmental Sciences (2009). Her main areas of interest are fate and remediation of organic compounds in soil and groundwater. Ongoing projects involve the application of remediation techniques such as in-situ chemical oxidation in tropical soils, and the development of remediation techniques for emerging contaminants such as hormones. Other projects aim at understanding the behavior of organic contaminants and developing monitoring techniques adapted for tropical soils.
Dr. Marilda Mendonça Guazzelli RamosVianna (USP) is a research fellow at the University of São Paulo (CEPEMA-USP). She is a reviewer of the Brazilian Journal of Chemical Engineering and FAPESP. She was a coordinator of a project in materials development with BF-Clay Especialidades Ltda., and technical manager of the project “Development of intervention program for the impacted areas of REMAN refinery” (PETROBRAS, Manaus)”. She has experience in the area of Environmental Engineering, mainly in treatment of waste effluents, soil and groundwater remediation, treatment of industrial waste, in situ chemical oxidation and advanced oxidation process.
Dr. Geórgia Christina Labuto Araújo (UNIFESP) is a Professor of Chemistry at the Federal University of São Paulo. She has a PhD in Chemistry from the Federal University of São Carlos (2004), and spent one year of her degree at the University of Coimbra (2003). She focuses on analytical instrumentation, biosorption of heavy metals and endocrine disruptors, methods of quantification of endocrine disruptors in environmental samples, sample preparation, and investigation of waste sample preparation She is also a collaborating researcher at the Center for
Functional Ecology, University of Coimbra, Portugal.
Dr. José Ermírio (UNIFESP) is a Professor at the Federal University of São Paulo and the Director of the Chemical Engineering Program. He is also Associate Researcher at the University of São Paulo. He focuses on industrial wastewater treatments, advanced oxidative processes (AOP), chemical reactors, and modeling andsimulation of chemical processes. He has published 6 papers in indexed journals in the last 5 years.
Elisabete José Vicente (USP) has been a Professor at the Biomedical Sciences Institute since 1986. She has experience in applied microbiology, microbial physiology, and molecular biology of microorganism (bacteria and yeasts). She works on microbial biodiversity analysis, bioremediation of waters containing heavy metals; microbial metal biosensors; Saccharomyces cerevisiae, yeast transformation, stable transforming of industrial yeast strains, microbial biofuel production; polyhydroxyalkanoates (PHA). She has published 19 papers (5 papers in the last 5 years); 2 book chapters; 240 Congress abstracts.. She has made 10 patent applications to the Brazilian PTO; 2 have been granted and 1 has been licensed.
Maria Anita Mendes (USP) is Associate Researcher at the Department of Chemical Engineering. She has extensive experience in mass spectrometry with modern separation methods coupled with mass spectrometric detection, and with biochemical methodology. She was a Post-Doctoral Research Fellow at UNICAMP (new technologies for mass spectrometry analysis) and at the Paulista State University in Rio Claro, SP, Brazil (mass spectrometry characterization of wasp venom peptides). She is an Alcoa Foundation Fellow at the University of São Paulo (CEPEMA-USP) (Integrating Modern Analytical Methodologies into the Development of Sustainable Technologies). Dr. Mendes has published more than 45 papers and is the co-author of three patents, two of which received the "Governor of the State of São Paulo" Patent Award.
Elen Aquino Perpetuo (USP) is a Research Fellow in biodegradation of phenol in wastewaters. She has experience in culturing of microorganisms, enzymatic kinetics and purification of proteins, bioremediation and molecular biology. She currently has a project on biodegradation of aromatic compounds by a lab scale treatment with genetically modified microorganisms. She has published 4 papers in indexed journals and 1 book chapter in the last 5 years. She acts as collaborator in the Laboratory of DNA Repair of the Biomedical Sciences Institute of the University of São Paulo.
Claudionor Gomes da Silva Filho is a Researcher in Microbiology, Bioremediation, Molecular Biology, Fermentation, and Chemical Engineering Industrial Process. He has published 4 articles in the last years and 1 Patent filed and licensed by Biosafe LTDA.
Ronaldo Biondo is a Researcher in Microbiology, Bioremediation, Molecular Biology, Fermentation, Chemistry Engineering, Biodiversity Conservation, Genetics of Populations. He has published 6 articles in the last years and has filed 2 Patents. Winner of Awards: Dow Chemical of Sustainability, 2009; Science and Inovation/Santander, 2008; National Water Agency/MMA-Brazil, 2008.
MSc. Vicente de Aquino Neto (CETESB) is the Manager of the Sector of Contaminated Sites Assessment and Auditing in CETESB. He has worked at CETESB since 1992 dealing with contaminated sites. He is an agronomica engineer and holds a M.Sc. degree in Soil and Plant Nutrition from USP.