Canadian Light Source

06/20/2026

Pulse starch comes from crops like peas, lentils, faba beans, and dry beans. It is very good at forming gels, which makes it useful for creating new, plant based materials. Researchers at the University of Saskatchewan’s College of Agriculture and Bioresources are using pea starch to develop two types of biogels.

The first is a cryogel with many tiny pores that make it potentially useful for holding and controlling the release of bioactive compounds and drugs. The second is a hydrogel that can conduct electricity and could be used in sensors for health monitoring, tracking human movement, soft robotics, and tools that connect people and machines.

To better understand how these gels work, the research team used intense synchrotron light at the CLS to visualize their biogels in detail. This let them see the tiny structures inside the gels and how the ingredients interact. Learning how structure affects performance will help improve these materials and support new industrial uses. This research is supported by Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada, the Government of Saskatchewan’s Strategic Research Initiative Program, and Saskatchewan Pulse Growers. The research team members include Chengyong Zhu, Yongfeng Ai, and Jarvis Stobbs (CLS). The image shows a hydrogel and a cryogel.

06/19/2026

Cows eat grass…everyone knows that. But climate change is forcing producers and scientists to rethink some of our long-held assumptions about livestock nutrition. Crop costs are climbing. Traditional pastures are under pressure. And researchers are casting a wider net for unconventional feed sources that might help the industry adapt.

Wade Abbott, a research scientist with Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada based in Lethbridge, Alberta, was curious whether cattle can digest seaweed. And if they can, what's happening inside their guts to make it work? Abbott and his colleagues used the CLS to answer those questions. Seaweed is fundamentally different from grass or hay at the molecular level. Breaking it down requires entirely different enzymes, ones that land-plant digesters wouldn't normally need.

The researchers looked at what happened inside the gut of cows that were fed . They observed a bloom or proliferation of bacteria they believe was involved in – which suggested the cattle were successfully breaking down and digesting the marine material.

Abbott and colleagues have named this the "latent trait hypothesis": Beneficial microbe digesters persist at very low levels in the gut, essentially waiting, ready to rapidly multiply when the right dietary signal arrives. "Crystallography (at the CLS) gave us the molecular blueprint for how these enzymes work," Abbott said. "We could finally see exactly how the bacteria crack the code of seaweed digestion.” The team's findings are published in the science journal Nature Communications.

Abbott is quick to note that seaweed won't replace hay or traditional animal feeds; it's far too expensive for that. But the health benefits may be significant. "We're seeing potential for seaweed as an alternative to antimicrobials, or as an immunity booster," he said.

Looking ahead, Abbott sees this work as opening a much larger door. "We're only beginning to understand the genetic mechanisms that allow gut microbes to process these marine sugars," he said. "If we can map those pathways fully, the applications go well beyond cattle. We're talking about a new framework for sustainable , one that embraces unconventional feed sources and works with the biology that's already there, waiting to be activated."
https://bit.ly/42ELsf0

University of Calgary
University of Victoria
University of Lethbridge

06/19/2026

fuel cells are a promising clean energy technology that can power vehicles without producing carbon emissions—only water. When paired with renewable energy, hydrogen can be made from water and used to help reduce pollution from transportation.

However, these systems face a key challenge: tiny impurities called "cations” (charged particles from metals or minerals) can build up inside and electrolyzers. These contaminants can come from corrosion, materials inside the system, or even impurities in water, and they can reduce performance and shorten the system’s lifespan by interfering with how electricity is generated.

Researchers with Toronto Metropolitan University are working to better understand how these contaminants move and behave. They used advanced imaging techniques at the CLS to “see” where the impurities go in real time. With these insights, researchers could design more durable and efficient hydrogen technologies—helping accelerate the shift to cleaner transportation and energy systems.

Team members on this project include ChungHyuk Lee, Linlin Liu, Dana Brown, Dhanvin Lad, and Tejal Rana.

Funded by Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada and Toronto Metropolitan University.

06/19/2026

: Mining is important to the Canadian economy, generating approximately $117 billion in value annually. At the same time, the waste left behind can contain toxic elements that pose a threat to human health and the environment. Reintroducing vegetation at decommissioned mine sites using native plant species is now a government mandated practice. However, we don’t know exactly how plants native to the boreal forest – where many old mines are located – interact with toxic metals. Do plants lock these elements underground? Or do they move them into the leaves and stems – which could pose a threat to animals? Researchers at the University of Saskatchewan are using the BioXAS-Imaging beamline to map the concentrations of metals such as copper, chromium, and nickel in the leaves, stems, and roots of six boreal plant species. What they learn could help restoration teams pick plants that keep metals safely in the ground and reduce risks to water, food, and wildlife.

Photo: Researchers Levi Lundell, left, (PhD student, Dept of Soil Science, College of Agriculture and Bioresources) and Alicia Lamb (MSc student in Derek Peak's group) They're at the BioXAS-Imaging beamline, with a macro sample holder.

06/18/2026

Listen to the University of Saskatchewan's Signature Series research podcast on "Understanding nuclear energy with Drs. Andrew Grosvenor and Mehrnaz Mikhchian (CLS)" - https://bit.ly/4tURHGO

Nuclear energy is a growing industry – so what do we need to know about it?

06/18/2026

Turning farm and forest waste into storage 🔋

Researchers are finding new ways to turn leftover materials like flax and spruce into useful electrode materials for energy storage devices. Using heat and simple treatments, this waste can be transformed into carbon materials that store energy.

PhD student Yesu Ramya Kandregula and Prof. Ajay. K. Dalai with USask Engineering and Dr. Ramin Azargohar from Memorial University, Newfoundland and Labrador are using bright light at the CLS to study these carbon materials in detail. By better understanding their structure, it could help them find new ways to store energy and release power more efficiently.

Why does this matter? Better energy storage helps make renewable energy from wind and solar more reliable. It can also reduce emissions, create jobs, and support a growing clean energy economy.

By working to turn waste into high-performance materials, this research could help build a circular bioeconomy right here in Saskatchewan. 🌱⚡

The research team notes their appreciation for the support provided by the CLS Strategic Support Group, especially Dr. Jarvis Stobbs, Dr. Tibbers Hao, and Dr. Mary-Ellen Donnelly, for their valuable assistance with sample preparation and data analysis.

This study is funded by Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada.

Image: Kandregula at the SGM beamline at the CLS.



University of Saskatchewan

06/18/2026

Researchers from Queen's University / Queen's Department of Geological Sciences and Geological Engineering are investigating the behavior of a rare, valuable metal called rhenium (Re) in from a metal recycling facility in Ontario. The scientists have detected the metal at multiple stages of the wastewater treatment process, but its movement and chemical transformations are not yet fully understood.

At the beginning of treatment, rhenium may be locked into tiny, solid particles that don't move much. But as the wastewater is treated and its chemistry changes, the metal can shift into a dissolved form that travels easily with the water and can end up in the environment. To track these changes, the team is using the powerful X-rays at the CLS to identify the chemical forms of rhenium at each stage of the process.

By understanding how rhenium changes and moves through different environments, the team hopes to find better ways to remove it from wastewater. This could help protect rivers and lakes from pollution and even allow like rhenium to be recovered and reused instead of lost.


Image: Bas Vriens, supervisor (bottom right); Meghan Boyd, PhD student (middle); and, Olivia Clay, Masters student (top).

06/17/2026

“We are approaching an age where we can perform rapid drug screening to identify target for the purpose of curing cancers and disease,” says Pirouz Kiani, a PhD student with the University of Calgary Faculty of Science.

As a result, heterocycles—target molecules and key building blocks in many medicines—are being used more often. Kiani, working alongside Pierre Kennepohl and Joseph Zsombor-Pindera with UCalgary, are developing methods to synthesize these targets efficiently for drug therapy. Many heterocyclic drugs are currently made using palladium catalysts, but trace palladium is toxic to both the human body and the environment. Nickel is a safer, less toxic, and more environmentally friendly alternative, though scientists still do not fully understand how nickel catalysts work or why they react selectively with certain chemicals.

The researchers used the CLS to study nickel-based catalysts and learn more about how nickel forms the carbon–nitrogen bonds present in heterocycles. They hope improved nickel catalysts could make safer, cheaper, and greener.

This research is funded by Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada.

University of Calgary

06/17/2026

Today's the world day to combat desertification and 💧

In 2024, researchers from the University of British Columbia used the CLS to look inside two types of balsam poplar saplings, to learn more about how their water transport system is affected by lack of moisture in soil.

Under normal conditions, water is transported from the roots of a tree to its leaves through a continuous column of water. However, in drought conditions pockets of air form in that column, blocking the transport of water and nutrients to the leaves.

The UBC team discovered that balsam poplars use their xylem fibers to store water then subsequently release it into the xylem’s vessels, the pipe-like cells that house its hydraulic column – reducing the risk of embolism forming there.

Full story: https://bit.ly/41VtZO7

06/17/2026

There is a big push to find new ways to turn carbon dioxide (CO₂)—a major cause of —into useful products like fuels and chemicals. Researchers from the National Research Council of Canada () are focusing their efforts on single-atom catalysts (SACs), which use tiny amounts of metals like silver, zinc, or cobalt to speed up chemical reactions. These catalysts help lower energy use and reduce costs for converting .

The researchers are using ultrabright synchrotron light at the CLS to study how the atoms are arranged and how they behave. They can even watch the catalyst working in real time, helping them see exactly what happens during the reaction.

This work could help cut CO2 emissions, create cleaner fuels, lower energy costs, and drive new innovations in the energy and chemical industries.


Image: From left to right, Lei Zhang, Nur Hossain, and Roberto Neagu, all research officers involved in the project.