Recovery of organics from oil sands process water and tailings with novel highly porous activated carbon-based absorbants produced from petroleum coke

该CRD项目旨在开发具有成本效益的技术解决方案，从工业残留物和废物流（石油焦、油砂工艺用水和尾矿）中回收和回收有价值的产品。加拿大拥有世界上第二大已探明石油储量，主要是在阿尔伯塔的油砂矿床。在油砂工业中，从露天矿生产的每桶石油平均需要3桶淡水。大部分工艺用水最终进入沥青提取过程中产生的尾矿中。油砂工艺水和尾矿含有来自沥青分离工艺的有机物（例如，环烷酸（NAs）和沥青/芳烃），其中NAs在浓度和毒性方面都是主要成分。对于油砂工业来说，工艺水的处理一直是可持续石油生产和淡水资源保护的关键问题。在这个项目中，我们将与Newalta公司密切合作，开发创新的工程环境解决方案，以使石油焦作为一种廉价但有效的吸附剂（具有定制结构/表面特性的高度多孔活性炭（HPAC）材料）用于油砂工艺水和尾矿的处理。使用由残渣（石油焦）生产的HPAC材料去除和回收NAs/沥青不仅可以减少淡水消耗，并能够从工艺用水和尾矿中回收残留有机物，而且还可以将残渣石油焦转化为有价值的产品（吸附剂），从而减少处置的需要。因此，预计该CRD项目的结果将对油砂行业（用于更清洁的化石燃料生产）和Newalta（用于开发从废水中去除有机物的新技术，稳定和资源回收）产生重大影响。

This CRD project aims to develop cost-effective technological solutions to recycling and recovery of valuable products from industrial residues and waste streams - petroleum coke, oil sands process water and tailings. Canada is blessed with the second largest proven reserve of oil in the world, mainly in oil sands deposits in Alberta. In the oil sands industry, an average of 3 barrels of fresh water is needed for every barrel of oil produced from surface mines. A large fraction of the process water ends up in the tailings produced during bitumen extraction. The oil sands process water and tailings contain organics from the bitumen separation process (e.g., naphthenic acids (NAs) and bitumen/aromatic hydrocarbons), among which NAs are the major constituent in terms of both concentration and toxicity. Treatment of the process water has been a critical issue for the oil sands industry, with respect to sustainable oil production and freshwater resource protection. In this project, we will closely collaborate with Newalta Corporation to develop innovative engineered environmental solutions to valorization of petroleum coke as an inexpensive but effective adsorbent (highly porous activated carbon (HPAC) materials with tailored structure/surface properties) for treatment of oil sand process water and tailings. The removal and recovery of NAs/bitumen using the HPAC materials produced from residues (petroleum coke) could not only reduce fresh water consumption and enable recovery of residual organics from process water and tailings, but also turn residue petroleum coke into valuable products (adsorbents) and hence, reduce the need for disposal. It is thus anticipated that the outcome of this CRD project would greatly impact on both the oil sands industry (for cleaner fossil fuels production) and Newalta (for development of new technologies for organics removal from waste water, valorization and resource recovery).