Department of Chemical and Environmental Engineering, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut 06511, United States.
Exponent, Incorporated, Maynard, Massachusetts 01754, United States.
Environ Sci Technol. 2020 Aug 18;54(16):9872-9881. doi: 10.1021/acs.est.0c01735. Epub 2020 Jul 27.
The surface mining and bitumen extraction of oil sands (OS) generates over one million barrels of heavy oil each day in the Alberta Oil Sands Region of Canada. Recent observations suggest that emissions from OS development contribute to secondary organic aerosol (SOA) formation, but the chemical composition, mass fluxes, and sources of those emissions are poorly delineated. Here, we simulated OS extraction and used comprehensive two-dimensional gas chromatography to quantify and characterize direct air emissions, bitumen froth, residual wastewater, and tailings components, ultimately enabling fate modeling of over 1500 chromatographic features simultaneously. During the non-ice cover season, tailings ponds emissions contributed 15 000-72 000 metric tonnes of hydrocarbon SOA precursors, translating to 3000-13 000 tonnes of SOA, whereas direct emissions during the extraction process itself were notably smaller (960 ± 500 tonnes SOA yr). These results suggest that tailings pond waste management practices should be targeted to reduce environmental emissions.
在加拿大阿尔伯塔省油砂地区，露天采矿和沥青提取每天产生超过一百万桶重油。最近的观察表明，油砂开发产生的排放物促成了次生有机气溶胶（SOA）的形成，但这些排放物的化学组成、质量通量和来源仍未得到明确界定。在这里，我们模拟了油砂提取，并使用全面的二维气相色谱法对直接空气排放物、沥青泡沫、剩余废水和尾矿成分进行定量和特征描述，最终能够同时对超过 1500 个色谱特征进行命运建模。在非冰盖季节，尾矿池排放物贡献了 15000-72000 公吨的碳氢化合物 SOA 前体，相当于 3000-13000 公吨的 SOA，而在提取过程本身中的直接排放则明显较小（960±500 吨 SOA 年）。这些结果表明，应针对尾矿池废物管理实践，以减少环境排放。
