Leshuk Timothy M C, Young Zachary W, Wilson Brad, Chen Zi Qi, Smith Danielle A, Lazaris Greg, Gopanchuk Mary, McLay Sean, Seelemann Corin A, Paradis Theo, Bekele Asfaw, Guest Rodney, Massara Hafez, White Todd, Zubot Warren, Letinski Daniel J, Redman Aaron D, Allen D Grant, Gu Frank
H2nanO Inc., Kitchener, Ontario, Canada N2R 1E8.
Department of Chemical Engineering and Applied Chemistry, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M5S 3E5.
ACS ES T Water. 2024 Feb 23;4(4):1483-1497. doi: 10.1021/acsestwater.3c00616. eCollection 2024 Apr 12.
Environmental reclamation of Canada's oil sands tailings ponds is among the single largest water treatment challenges globally. The toxicity of oil sands process-affected water (OSPW) has been associated with its dissolved organics, a complex mixture of naphthenic acid fraction components (NAFCs). Here, we evaluated solar treatment with buoyant photocatalysts (BPCs) as a passive advanced oxidation process (P-AOP) for OSPW remediation. Photocatalysis fully degraded naphthenic acids (NAs) and acid extractable organics (AEO) in 3 different OSPW samples. However, classical NAs and AEO, traditionally considered among the principal toxicants in OSPW, were not correlated with OSPW toxicity herein. Instead, nontarget petroleomic analysis revealed that low-polarity organosulfur compounds, composing <10% of the total AEO, apparently accounted for the majority of waters' toxicity to fish, as described by a model of tissue partitioning. These findings have implications for OSPW release, for which a less extensive but more selective treatment may be required than previously expected.
加拿大油砂尾矿池的环境修复是全球最大的单一水处理挑战之一。油砂加工影响水（OSPW）的毒性与其溶解有机物有关，这是一种环烷酸馏分成分（NAFCs）的复杂混合物。在此，我们评估了使用漂浮光催化剂（BPC）进行太阳能处理作为一种用于OSPW修复的被动高级氧化工艺（P-AOP）。光催化作用使3种不同OSPW样品中的环烷酸（NAs）和酸可萃取有机物（AEO）完全降解。然而，传统上被认为是OSPW主要毒物的经典NAs和AEO，在此处与OSPW毒性并无关联。相反，非靶向石油化学分析表明，占总AEO不到10%的低极性有机硫化合物，显然是造成水对鱼类毒性的主要原因，如通过组织分配模型所描述的那样。这些发现对OSPW的排放具有启示意义，对于OSPW的排放，可能需要比先前预期的范围更小但更具选择性的处理。
