Bioinspired Green Glycolipids as Fugitive Dust Mitigation Agents

Ambient air pollution significantly contributes to the global disease burden, leading to increased morbidity and mortality. In 2019, particulate air pollution alone contributed to over 4 million premature deaths. Mineral dusts, a component of atmospheric particulate matter, affect global biogeochemical cycles, pollute water bodies and air masses, and impact global systems. Dust poses both physical and health hazards, the latter particularly affecting cardiovascular and respiratory health.

Mining activities generate dust at various stages, including excavation, blasting, stockpiling, crushing, grinding, and transport. Dust from mining operations, both modern and legacy, serves as an exposure route for other contaminants like arsenic and lead. To safeguard human and environmental health from mining-related dust, innovative and health compatible technologies are essential to mitigate dust emissions. Research in Phase I demonstrated that glycolipid surfactants are effective dust suppressants, matching or surpassing currently available products.

Despite the availability of various dust suppression products, market opportunities exist for new technologies to address their disadvantages, such as corrosiveness to machinery, potential risks to human health from hazardous components, and short-term effectiveness due to susceptibility to disruption by environmental factors like strong winds. The overarching goal of this Phase II SBIR is to demonstrate the commercial potential of a next-generation dust suppression technology using GlycoSurf’s proprietary glycolipid surfactants. This will be achieved through field testing on an active mining site, expanding the physicochemical diversity of tailings evaluated, and elucidating the fundamental materials science and engineering principles driving glycolipid dust suppression efficacy. The Phase II project has four aims.

Aim 1 will refine and scale-up glycolipid synthesis to produce kilogram quantities of glycolipids. Aim 2 will establish a field test site on an active mine operation to perform two studies designed first to screen glycolipids for best performance and second, to study application frequency and concentration of the best glycolipid formulation. Aim 3 will focus on analysis of the material properties of glycolipids and glycolipid-mine tailing interactions to understand their correlation with dust suppression effectiveness, covering a range of mine tailings geochemistry from both field and laboratory settings. Aim 4 will involve a technological and economic assessment to determine the feasibility and commercial potential of scaling up and commercializing glycolipid dust suppressant technology.

Successful completion of this project will yield at least one candidate formulation suitable for commercialization as a dust suppressant for mine tailings. These formulations will be environmentally compatible and effective in reducing dust emissions, thus mitigating risks to human and environmental health. The characterization of glycolipid performance will provide fundamental knowledge of glycolipid structure-function relationships, guiding future development and driving innovation in dust suppressant technologies.

Grant Number: 5R44ES034319-03
NIH Institute/Center: NIH
Principal Investigator: Chett Boxley