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

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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).