Solar-driven removal of organic contaminants from water

水修复对于减少油砂开采对环境的影响至关重要。然而，有效的水修复需要同时具有高吞吐量、高效率和低成本的技术，特别是对于油砂尾矿库中包含的大量水。光催化降解的高级氧化处理(AOP)技术可能提供一种解决方案，以消除甚至顽固的有机物，如环烷酸，已知的生物毒性。我们将开发一种新技术，可以有效地从太阳获取广谱能量，利用微织构二氧化钛驱动光催化，从而实现高通量水处理。通过拟议项目开发的技术将利用我们开发光电纳米材料的丰富经验，并满足市场对用于修复受油砂工艺影响的水的创新产品的需求。

Water remediation is critical to reducing the environmental impact of oil sands extraction. However, effective water remediation requires technologies that are simultaneously high throughput, highly efficient and low cost, particularly for the large volumes contained within tailing ponds in the oil sands. Advanced oxidative processing (AOP) for photocatalytic degradation may offer a solution to eliminating even recalcitrant organics, such as naphthenic acids, with known biotoxicity. We will develop a new technology that can efficiently harvest the broad-spectrum energy from the sun to drive photocatalysis using microtextured titania to enable high throughput water treatment. The technology developed through the proposed project will leverage our deep experience developing optoelectronic nanomaterials and address a market need for innovative new products for the remediation of oil sands process-affected water.