Researchers at Vancouver Island University are working on new techniques to measure cyanobacteria cheaper and quicker, as the prevalence of the algae in Canada's freshwater bodies climbs due to global warming.
Cyanobacteria, also known as blue-green algae, are a microscopic plant-like organism that forms into toxic blooms when freshwater is calm, has high temperatures and an increase in appropriate nutrients.
In a press release, Dr. Chris Gill, a VIU chemistry professor and co-director of VIU’s applied environmental research laboratories, warned that as global warming increases, the prevalence of these blooms have also increased, threatening access to safe drinking water as well as swimming across Canada.
“The risk to human health is significant: dogs and wildlife have died from the effects of water contaminated with these toxins," Gill explained.
While most of B.C.'s drinking water remains unthreatened, other provinces, such as Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba, rely on water from shallow lakes, which can be host to toxic blooms.
Gill, and one of his master's students, Lucas Abruzzi, are now collaborating with the National Research Council of Canada’s Halifax lab on using paper spray mass spectrometry as a way to measure the toxins in less time and a lower cost than traditional measurements.
“You can’t necessarily tell if toxins are present just by looking at a lake. Sometimes the bloom isn’t on the surface. A lake could look clear and safe, but there could still be toxins present,” Abruzzi said. “Different areas of a lake could also have varying levels of bloom, so the toxin isn’t always universally dispersed. The only way to compensate for this is through more frequent and widespread testing.”
Paper spray mass spectrometry functions by placing a tiny water sample on a strip of cellulose paper and placing it in the mass spectrometer for measurement. Compared to 30 minutes, with conventional testing with extensive sample preparation, this method gives results within two minutes without any sample preparation.
“That’s why it’s revolutionary, there’s very little sample preparation,” Gill said. “The method also offers the potential of drying samples collected at remote sites on paper strips. Those dried strips can be shipped easily in the mail for analysis, whereas if you’re collecting a water sample, it must be transported on ice, making it expensive and cumbersome to send for analysis.”
The release states that the end-goal includes methods to miniaturize the technology "to go where conventional methods can't."
