Fuel from fish project nets Newfoundland duo 2nd consecutive Atlantic region win

Newfoundland, Jared Trask, 18, Kaitlyn Stockley, 17, Grade 12, Holy Spirit High School, Conception Bay South

Bio-energy seems to be in the blood of two high energy Newfoundland high school bioscience wizards, Jared Trask, 18, and Kaitlyn Stockley, 17.

For the second consecutive year, the Grade 12 students at Holy Spirit High School in Conception Bay South, near St. John’s, have won the Atlantic Regional “Sanofi BioGENEius Challenge Canada” (SBCC) with a project that demonstrates a novel idea for creating fuels from natural biological sources.

Last year, they showed how to get biofuel from common algae grown in colder temperatures. This year they’ve shown how oil extracted from different fish species can be added to other biofuels to enhance performance.

Jared explains that many biofuels have the problem of being too viscous, and thick consistency limits their use. However, “the oil from fish waste, especially cod waste, can be blended into other fuels,” he says. “Meanwhile, the proteins in the fish oil have properties which act as an anti-freeze, helping other fuels work better in colder temperatures.”

Kaitlyn underlines the wider implications this project might have.

“At present fish waste — the heads, guts, etc — is just being dumped into the sea or used as land fill. If this project became large-scale, it would not only reduce dependence on fossil fuels, it would provide extra income for fish processors and cut down on waste.”

Dr. Kelly Hawboldt, Associate Professor, Process Engineering at Memorial University, mentored the pair. She guided them in setting up the process to extract the oil from the fish waste and analyzing the four types of fish they studied to compare lipid composition and cold flow properties.

“This is a unique project with real scientific and possibly commercial value,” she says, “These kids are very motivated.”

Interestingly, Jared and Kaitlyn weren’t the only ones from Conception Bay lauded by the national SBCC judges last year. During their presentation at the National Research Council of Canada headquarters in Ottawa, the duo described turning Jared’s family kitchen into an unheated biofuel lab for 69 days, using a centrifuge, chemicals and high frequency sound waves to extract oil from cold environment algae. That prompted the scientific jury to create a new certificate for the “most patient parent,” and its first recipient was Jared’s mom, Cheryl Trask.

Given that this year’s project involved fish waste, however, the pair conducted their work at Dr. Hawboldt’s lab at the Bruno Centre for Innovation and Research at Memorial University in St. John’s.