Across Alberta, roughly 740,000 abandoned oil and gas wells have left behind elevated salt concentrations that can threaten agriculture and groundwater.
For Dr. Anne Benneker, PhD, an associate professor and researcher in the Schulich School of Engineering who studies how contaminants move through soil and water, the scale of the issue highlights the need for an effective and economically realistic solution.
On Feb. 12, Emissions Reduction Alberta (ERA) awarded Benneker $750,000 to support her $2.8-million University of Calgary research project.
The project, one of only six selected through ERA's Industrial Transformation Challenge and the only university-led initiative named, focuses on developing in-situ technology to remove salts and hydrocarbons from contaminated soils.
Video Credit: Kyle Sieben, Communications
Rethinking remediation
Traditional remediation relies heavily on excavation and landfill disposal, which can be disruptive and carbon intensive.
"The traditional dig-and-dump method is reliant on trucks coming in, taking the contaminated soil you're not really solving the problem. You're just moving the contamination to another site," Benneker says.
Benneker's team is developing a technology that uses electric fields to move and remove contaminants directly underground, without digging up the soil.
The technology is designed to remove both salts and hydrocarbons at the same time, a major advantage over conventional methods that typically focus on one contaminant at a time.
How it works: The electric field draws salty groundwater toward a central treatment zone, where specialized sorbent materials act like a filtering sponge, capturing salt ions and hydrocarbons so the concentrated contaminants can be pumped out.
"Our method costs about 10 per cent of the traditional technique," Benneker says.
This cost reduction makes large-scale remediation more feasible, allowing more wells to be treated quickly while keeping the soil intact and reducing environmental and community impacts.
Laying the groundwork
The research began in 2019 under the leadership of Dr. Edward (Ted) Roberts, PhD, a professor of chemical and petroleum engineering in the Schulich School and an expert in electrochemical technologies.
Roberts helped establish the initial industry partnerships, including Imperial Oil, and guided the project's early direction before passing the work to Benneker.
Benneker has led the team in developing bench-scale laboratory models and has been conducting field tests since 2023 to validate the concept.
Support has since expanded to include Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) Alliance funding, continued sponsorship from Imperial Oil, collaboration with NAIT in earlier proposal stages, and internal UCalgary research initiatives.
"We get to meet with the industry folks and consultants on a weekly basis to develop all this technology, so it really moves fast," says Benneker.
Tackling tough soils
To translate lab success to the field, the team needed expertise in materials and interfacial engineering.
Co-principal investigator Dr. Sathish Ponnurangam, PhD, also a professor in chemical and petroleum engineering at Schulich, joined the project to address these challenges.
Many field sites contain clay-heavy soils, which are low permeability and slow moving, making contaminants especially difficult to mobilize.
Ponnurangam's work ensures the system functions reliably in these challenging soils.
He is currently developing corrosion-resistant electrodes, improving movement of heavier hydrocarbons, and designing sorbent materials that efficiently capture contaminants.
Ponnurangam says the team has built momentum as results from laboratory and early field testing continue to show promise.
"Our collaboration has been so fruitful, and outcomes have been promising such that both industry and government funding agencies are investing more dollars to further this technology," he says.
Next steps
With ERA funding secured, Benneker's team is preparing for another round of field testing this summer in Leduc County, south of Edmonton.
The trial will focus on refining material performance and optimizing contaminant capture under real-world conditions.
If successful, the technology could expand beyond Alberta, restoring contaminated sites efficiently with minimal environmental disruption.
The team's goal remains clear: develop a practical, scalable remediation system that restores land efficiently while minimizing environmental and economic impacts.
