Madill R E, Orzechowski M T, Chen G, Brownlee B G, Bunce N J
Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, University of Guelph, Guelph, Ontario, Canada N1G 2W1.
Environ Toxicol. 2001 Jun;16(3):197-208. doi: 10.1002/tox.1025.
Chemical and biological assays have been carried out on the "pore water" that results from the settling of the tailings that accompany bitumen recovery from the Athabasca oil sands. Examination of the nonacidic extracts of pore water by gas chromatography-mass spectroscopy allowed the identification of numerous two- to three-ring polycyclic aromatic compounds (PACs), to a total concentration of 2.6 micrograms/L of pore water. The PACs were biodegraded by microflora naturally present in the pore water. Acute toxicity was associated principally with the acidic fraction (naphthenic acids) of pore water extracts according to the Microtox assay; other work has shown that acute toxicity dissipates fairly rapidly. Both individual PACs and concentrated pore water extracts showed minimal levels of binding to the rat Ah receptor and induced minimal ethoxyresorufin-O-deethylase activity in primary rat hepatocytes, showing an insignificant risk of inducing monooxygenase activity. Taken together with previous work showing negligible mutagenic activity of these extracts, we conclude that it should be possible to develop tailing slurries into biologically productive artificial lakes.
针对从阿萨巴斯卡油砂中回收沥青时产生的尾矿沉降所形成的“孔隙水”，开展了化学和生物学分析。通过气相色谱 - 质谱联用仪对孔隙水的非酸性提取物进行检测，鉴定出了多种两到三环的多环芳烃化合物（PACs），孔隙水中其总浓度为2.6微克/升。这些PACs被孔隙水中自然存在的微生物群落生物降解。根据微毒性试验，急性毒性主要与孔隙水提取物的酸性部分（环烷酸）有关；其他研究表明急性毒性消散得相当快。单个PACs以及浓缩的孔隙水提取物与大鼠芳烃受体的结合水平极低，并且在原代大鼠肝细胞中诱导的乙氧异吩恶唑酮 - O - 脱乙基酶活性也极低，显示出诱导单加氧酶活性的风险极小。结合之前表明这些提取物诱变活性可忽略不计的研究，我们得出结论，将尾矿浆开发成具有生物生产力的人工湖应该是可行的。
