A research laboratory in Alberta is working to advance technologies for clean water.
The Advanced Water Research Lab is tackling the challenge of keeping water clean, utilizing next-generation filtration methods with use cases from the oil sands industry and to improving drinking water quality for rural communities.
Launched around 2015, The Advanced Water Research Lab is strategically situated at the University of Alberta’s Department of Mechanical Engineering.
There, department professor Mohtada Sadrzadeh heads research to help conserve Canada’s freshwater and improve the energy efficiency of the water treatment process in industrial settings.
“My work is at the interface of water, energy, and greenhouse gas emissions,” Sadrzadeh recently informed Alberta Innovates, which has acted as an industry partner over the past decade.
The water filtering process “affects everything,” noted Sadrzadeh, who acquired a PhD in Engineering in Iran before coming to the University of Alberta as a postdoctoral fellow.
The province’s oil sands, for example, demand enormous volumes of water. Recycling this water is essential, but inferior filtration technology can leave behind impurities that damage equipment and diminish a project’s performance over time.
“Conventional water treatment methods often fall short of removing all the organic and inorganic particles in the water,” Sadrzadeh remarked. “This causes fouling and scaling in steam generators and other critical process equipment in bitumen extraction facilities, so they must shut down and repair these facilities more frequently, costing them time and money.”
Sadrzadeh says his team is developing “membrane-based technologies” that are designed to “enhance water quality, reduce operational disruptions, and improve overall process efficiency.”
“My research team is finding ways to treat the water with advanced methods,” he said, noting their membranes are the first in the world capable of withstanding extreme heat. By not needing to cool the water prior to filtration, energy can be saved.
Beyond oil sands, Sadrzadeh is working on solutions for remote regions of Canada where safely accessing clean drinking water can prove difficult. This includes a gravity-assisted membrane that passively removes hazardous pathogens and other contaminants from the water without the need for external power.
“Currently, there is no gravity-driven membrane in the market that functions at this scale, so this will be the first one that provides this patent to companies to manufacture and get into the hands of consumers,” Sadrzadeh said.
In addition to his work at the U of A, Sadrzadeh is an entrepreneur, having founded Greenvi in 2022.
Greenvi is in the business of building membranes featuring biodegradable biopolymers that reduce pollution.
“We don’t want secondary waste, so we’re working on a biodegradable filter,” said Sadrzadeh.
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