Particuleye Technologies wants to help researchers better understand the problems. “Microplastics are largely unmonitored, so we don’t fully understand the extent and sources of pollution in freshwater resources,” says Zach Desrochers, CEO. “Researchers need faster and more accurate ways to quantify and characterize microplastics in water samples so they can inform our policies and offer next steps.”

Coming together to solve a problem

Formed in early 2020, Particuleye is a team of entrepreneurs who are passionate about solving microplastics pollution. Quinn Desrochers, Michael Beck, Zach Gousseau, Waseem Jawad, and Ryan Tran found each other through the Lake Winnipeg edition of the 2020 AquaHacking Challenge, an annual competition that aims to engage and support young Canadian entrepreneurs as they launch new technologies and solutions for freshwater challenges.
The beauty of AquaHacking, Desrochers says, is that it matches people with diverse backgrounds to tackle a shared interest. “I’m a civil engineer, Michael is a mathematician and computer scientist, Zach and Ryan are into data and analytics, and Waseem brings the business expertise,” says Quinn Desrochers, CEO. “We’re all interested in environmental issues, but most of us didn’t know each other before the competition.”

As the team considered each other’s skills and researched the competition’s problem statements, they learned that it can take days, even weeks, for researchers to collect and analyze water samples for microplastics. They decided to focus on a solution that drew upon their collective strengths.

Building a solution

Ryan Tran, the company’s chief content officer, was attracted to the technical aspect of the challenge. “Researchers still have to manually count the fragments and fibres in their samples,” he says. “For them, it would be a big help to automate the process, or at least to have a tool to act as a second eye.”

As a volunteer mentor for AquaHacking teams, University of Toronto researcher Dr. Chelsea Rochman provided the team with datasets from her lab. Tran, a computer engineer, used the datasets to develop a machine learning algorithm to identify different plastics in the samples.
Classifying microplastics can help researchers identify their source, says Michael Beck, a mathematician and computer scientist at the University of Winnipeg, as well as Particuleye’s chief technology officer. “In the future, this could be helpful as governments enforce regulations.” Beck brings expertise in imaging technologies and, in his full-time work, is conducting research in the field of digital agriculture.

The result of Particuleye’s work is a technology that uses computer vision and machine learning to make the counting and identification of microplastics fast, easy, accurate, and cost-efficient.

From concept to prototype

Over the course of two years and a global pandemic, the Particuleye team has taken its vision from concept to prototype. After eight months of hard work, they won the AquaHacking Challenge and have since leveraged the $20,000 prize to attract other grants, including support for research from Mitacs eAccelerate program. Today, they’re working together with researchers from �Ӱ�ԭ�� University’s Global Water Institute to validate their solution. The project is part of Environment and Climate Change Canada’s Zero Plastic Waste Funding Initiative.

Desrochers says working with Dr. Banu Örmeci and GWI is helping Particuleye validate their solution. “They’re the first ones to try the technology outside of our team,” Desrochers says. “They’re giving us invaluable feedback about how it’s working and what we need to improve.”
Once they validate the technology for use in lab environments, the team plans to make their solution available to governments. “We want to help inform regulators as they make decisions about how to manage microplastics,” says chief financial officer Waseem Jawad. “There’s a huge data gap, and we can help fill it.”

Particuleye also wants to test the technology in wastewater treatment facilities and, eventually, make the device available to the public for citizen science. “It should be that easy to use,” he says. “We’re motivated to give people the tools they need to inform next steps, determine solutions, and restore ecosystems.”

When he started to look further into the research, the state of microplastics science – and the tools researchers were using – surprised him.

“Researchers were mostly borrowing techniques from other science, such as dragging nets behind boats to collect samples from surface water, the same way some scientists collect samples to analyze plankton,” he says. “Upon collecting the samples, they were using forceps to pick and count visible plastic fragments, measuring them with calipers. None of these tools were specific to the study of microplastics. It seemed a bit backwards to me.”

Fueled by his interest and informed by his own training as a scientist, Wenham kept looking and stumbled upon the work of Ethan Edson, a research engineer at Northeastern University who was developing a sensor to measure and quantify microplastics. They connected, and Edson agreed that there was a lot to be done to accelerate the science. With his background as an entrepreneur and investor, Wenham saw an opportunity, and the two decided to form Ocean Diagnostics.

Bringing new technologies to microplastics science

Wenham and Edson are interested in developing technologies to help researchers more quickly, accurately, and consistently sample and count microplastics, measure their physical properties, and chemically characterize them.

The company’s first tool, Saturna, solves the challenge of achieving consistent sample images for rapid physical analysis of particles. “Saturna is small, portable, and integrates to a connected computer back at the lab,” Wenham explains. “Once you’ve taken your image, the file uploads to our Mariana data portal, where we use machine learning and AI software to assess morphology, size, shape, colour, and form. It can also predict the material category and determine whether we’re looking at a film, a pellet, or foam, for example.”

Before Saturna, getting these results might have taken days, Wenham says. “We can now achieve results in seconds.” Ocean Diagnostics is working with Dr. Banu Örmeci and researchers from �Ӱ�ԭ�� University’s Global Water Institute (GWI) to evaluate Saturna and compare the results from Mariana with standard sampling and lab analysis technologies. Collaborating with GWI has given Ocean Diagnostics the opportunity to test different configurations of Saturna and gain valuable feedback to help in the final product design. The project is part of Environment and Climate Change Canada’s Zero Plastic Waste Funding Initiative.

Collecting samples at depth is another challenge. “Studies suggest that 99.8% of oceanic plastic sinks below the ocean’s surface, but existing equipment is cumbersome and needs to be deployed from large research vessels,” Wenham says. “We want to enable researchers to collect more data with a solution that is more accessible and affordable.”

Ascension is the team’s solution, he says. Connected to a tether and rated to 400 metres of depth, this light, portable profiling instrument can be deployed from a small vessel to collect filtered microplastic samples through the water column. As well, Wenham adds, it supports quality control: “Since microplastics are airborne and can originate in clothing, for example, it’s not hard to contaminate samples in the field. The beauty of Ascension is that it filters samples in situ.”

The final offering in the company’s suite of technologies is a submersible sensor device that characterizes particles and identifies their chemical composition. With support from Innovative Solutions Canada, the company is currently working on a bench-scale prototype that uses a flow cell, imaging technology, and spectroscopic techniques to achieve these results.

Next steps

Wenham says Ocean Diagnostics has received its first commercial orders for Saturna and Ascension – a fundamental breakthrough for the company. The team is also exploring how it can enable citizen science on microplastics, inform regulations and policies, and apply its technologies to other areas of research, including the study of biodiversity. Furthermore, as regulations are developed and enforced, the company is positioning itself to become one of the first corporate labs to offer sample analysis.

As a team, Ocean Diagnostics is motivated to make a difference for the planet, Wenham says. “I feel fortunate that we’ve attracted like-minded, talented people to our small team, and that we’ve been able to work together with so many excellent partners, researchers, and experts, including Dr. Örmeci and the team at GWI, to tackle the microplastics challenge. It gives me the confidence that we’re doing the right thing at the right time.”

While there has been a significant amount of focus on the plastic that ends up in our oceans, we also need to consider the amount of plastic pollution that’s entering our freshwater. This session will explore the current challenges and potential opportunities associated with managing plastic pollution in Canada’s freshwater. During the discussion, we will consider how plastics are currently regulated in Canada, what opportunities there are for improvement, the implications for municipalities, and what technology companies can do to support municipalities.

Register NOW:

Speakers include:

John D. Coyne (Principal of Circularfuture365 and Executive Chair of the Canadian Stewardship Services Alliance, Inc.): Coyne is well known for his leadership in corporate sustainability. He promotes ESG, circular economy, and climate-related initiatives as essential features of corporate strategy. Currently, Coyne is executive chair of the Board of Canadian Stewardship Services Alliance, Inc. and is a director of Evergreen. He is also the co-chair of the Partners in Project Green steering committee, a collaborative environmental initiative run by the Toronto Region Conservation Authority. For more than a decade, John was a passionate activator of the Unilever Sustainable Living Plan and the Compass, Unilever’s strategy to grow the business, reduce its environmental footprint, and increase its positive contribution to society. John was also one of the founding Co-Chairs of the Circular Economy Leadership Coalition (CELC), which was launched in 2018 to accelerate Canada’s transition to a circular economy. Coyne has been recognized for his leadership in corporate sustainability by being named a Clean 50 honouree in 2013 and a Clean 16 honouree in 2018. In 2018, Coyne received the Canadian General Counsel Award for Environmental, Social, and Governance Leadership. In addition, in 2018, John was appointed to the federal Plastics Advisory group advising Canada’s Minister of the Environment and Climate Change on issues relating to plastics and the implementation of the Ocean Plastics Charter.

Christopher Hilkene (CEO of Pollution Probe): Hilkene is the chief executive officer of Pollution Probe. He has been an environment and sustainable development professional for over 20 years. Known more generally for his public policy and communications experience, he is recognized as a leader in freshwater policy and Great Lakes issues. A Canadian appointee to Great Lakes Water Quality Board of the International Joint Commission (IJC), Chris has served as the Canadian Lead on emerging issues for the last four years. In 2007, Chris was appointed to the National Roundtable on the Environment and the Economy, where he served as Chair of the Water Programme. He is an active volunteer and has served on boards and advisory bodies for numerous organizations including Ryerson University, Pollution Probe, WaterAid Canada, �Ӱ�ԭ�� University’s Global Water Institute, the City of Toronto’s Task Force to Bring Back the Don, Green Living Enterprises, the Vimy Foundation, and the George and Helen Vari Foundation.

Jesse Vermaire (Associate Professor at �Ӱ�ԭ�� University): Vermaire is interested in how environmental change, particularly land-use and climate change are impacting freshwater ecosystems. His research focuses on three broad areas: 1) impacts of climate warming and nutrient enrichment on lakes and streams, 2) ecosystem resilience, regime shifts, and recovery in freshwater systems, and 3) the importance of extreme events (e.g. droughts, storm surges, permafrost slumps) in altering aquatic ecosystems. Because changes to the environment often occur over large areas and at timescales of decades or longer, Vermaire’s lab employs a variety of techniques including lake survey studies, paleolimnological techniques, and the analysis of long-term datasets to meet our research objectives.

Anna Posacka (Chief Scientific Officer at Ocean Diagnostics Inc.): Posacka is a plastic pollution researcher and Chief Scientific Officer at Ocean Diagnostics Inc (ODI) based in Victoria, British Columbia. She leads the analytical laboratory dedicated to supporting different stakeholders in addressing challenges related to plastic and microplastic pollution. Before, she led a multi-disciplinary research laboratory at a conservation organization Ocean Wise, where she partnered with regulators, apparel industry, government agencies, and academia on a variety of scientific projects to inform solutions to plastics and microplastics. By studying microplastics from material sources to end of life, Posacka has gained insight into the various solutions to the problem as well as barriers to their implementation. Her research and expertise contributed to science and solution recommendations for plastics, including the Canada Plastics Science Agenda. Posacka holds a doctorate in Oceanography from the University of British Columbia and a masters degree in Applied Marine Sciences from University of Plymouth, UK.

Suja Sukumaran (Senior Applications Scientist at Thermo Fisher Scientific): Dr. Suja Sukumaran is a senior applications scientist at Thermo Fisher Scientific. She holds a PhD in Biophysics from Johann Wolfgang Goethe University, Germany. Sukumaran is also a co-inventor of U.S. patents on ‘MspA Nanopores and related methods’ licensed to Illumina Inc. She has experience and expertise in Molecular Spectroscopy, visible and fluorescence imaging, and protein and lipid biochemistry. Her current research interests include using AI for protein folding, microplastics, and recycling.

Corinne Lynds (Content Director at Actual Media): With more than two decades of experience leading B2B editorial teams and content strategy on the agency side, Lynds is passionate about humanizing highly technical stories across Actual Media’s print, digital, and experiential platforms. She is responsible for managing all of Actual Media’s editorial and content operations across the infrastructure, water, and environment sectors. Lynds is a compulsive storyteller who knows how to engage business audiences.

Join Water Walker and Professor Tasha Beeds in a conversation about how water walking contributes to the recovery and discovery of knowledge related to the very fabric of our existence as Indigenous and non-Indigenous people within shared Indigenous lands under the umbrella of Indigenous nationhood, sovereignty, inter-cultural relationships, truths and reconciliations. This Zoom conversation takes place Oct. 21 6:30pm – to register, contact juliearial@cunet.carleton.ca

Four City of Ottawa beaches have reopened, including the one along the Rideau at Mooney’s Bay where water is tested daily. Swimmers say the beach isn’t the only launching point along the 146-kilometre waterway, though, which runs from Smiths Falls, Ont., to downtown Ottawa where it flows into the Ottawa River.

Banu Örmeci, a �Ӱ�ԭ�� University professor with a specialty in water, wastewater treatment and pollution, swims in the river regularly near her home in Manotick.

Over the last year, researchers at �Ӱ�ԭ�� have been testing Ottawa’s wastewater for the virus and helping public health officials anticipate surges of infection before they occur.

They’ve also been working on ways to identify microplastic pollution in our local waterways.