Commercialisation of Bioreactor Process Technology

GSTDTAP

项目编号	NE/M005712/1
	Commercialisation of Bioreactor Process Technology
	[unavailable]
主持机构	University of Essex
项目开始年	2015
	2015-05-26
项目结束日期	2015-06-25
资助机构	UK-NERC
项目类别	Research Grant
国家	英国
语种	英语
英文摘要	With worldwide production of light crude oil reserves expected to last ~50 yrs, there is a need to exploit alternative fuel resources e.g. the heavy oil sands resources in North America. However, extraction and processing from oil sands, results in the production of large volumes of wastewaters (tailings) that have to be stored in vast settling ponds. There are several environmental concerns with tailings ponds. Firstly, they produce vast amounts of biogenic greenhouse gases. Secondly, they have very slow consolidation (settling) of the fine tailings solids, which may take decades. Thirdly, the storage of tailings poses huge environmental and economic risks from pollution incidents due to the presence of high concentrations of toxic compounds in the wastewaters known as naphthenic acids (NAs). NAs are complex mixtures of carboxylic acids that are highly toxic to many organisms including humans. NAs also block/ corrode pipes/ processing equipment causing further pollution and billion-dollar losses to the industry. Thus, removing NA contamination is important to the global economy, environment and human health. Microbial treatment of NAs has clear cost-environmental advantages. However, the transformation of NAs is complex and influenced by a combination of microbial interactions, biogeochemical factors and the physical-chemical properties of the NAs. Our research has contributed a significant advance to current technologies for treating oil sands process wastewaters. At UoE, we have developed a novel microbial bioreactor process technology that has proved successful with intermediate and large-scale trials. We have shown that our technology rapidly increases sedimentation rates thus increasing the proportion of clarified wastewater that could potentially be recycled back into the process. Our technology can also be applied on a large-scale to rapidly bioremediate and detoxify naphthenic acids (NAs) from at least two different process feeds within days of treatment. However, since each operator uses a different NA extraction method, the resulting wastewaters will have different physicochemical characteristics and will contain different NA compositions/ concentrations. It is therefore, crucial to further test our bioreactor technology (on an industrial-scale) in relation to the different oil sands wastewater streams from all oil sands companies. Our proposed project involves setting up a 2-day workshop with invited delegates from across the sector, including representatives from all the oil sands companies currently in operation in Alberta, the Regulator (Alberta Environment) and also members of the Canadian Oil Sands innovation Alliance (COSIA). The overall aim of the workshop would be to foster international collaboration and allow our technology to gain support from the oil sands industry as a cost-effective solution to a number of the industry's key priorities. The workshop will be used as a focus to demonstrate to the industry the cost-benefits and widespread ease of implementation of our technology. We will commission consultants to conduct an evaluation of the technical and economic feasibility of scaling-up our technology to an industrial scale for deployment across the oil sands companies. It is anticipated that, if successful, the project will enable inclusion and adoption of our technology by COSIA and the sector in conjunction with validation of the technology by the Regulator (Alberta Environment). This will provide a platform for a joint industry project (JIP) in collaboration with the sector to further test the technology and facilitate further commercialisation development. In conclusion, our novel technology will allow operators to recycle wastewater, reduce the amount of freshwater abstraction required for processing; increase sedimentation rates, thus reducing the amount of stored tailings with a concomitant reduction in capital/ storage costs and associated environmental/economic risks.
来源学科分类	Natural Environment Research
文献类型	项目
条目标识符	http://119.78.100.173/C666/handle/2XK7JSWQ/85627
专题	环境与发展全球科技态势
推荐引用方式 GB/T 7714	[unavailable].Commercialisation of Bioreactor Process Technology.2015.