Fuel for the future: Unlocking new fuel resources

Abstract

There is an increasing need to look towards the use of alternative fuel resources like the heavy/super heavy crude oils and oil sands. During oil sand refining, bitumen is extracted, which results in large amounts of contaminated waters (known as tailings pond waters, TPW) being generated. TPW contain complex mixtures of toxic, alicyclic, aliphatic and aromatic acids known as naphthenic acids (NA). TPW have to be stored in large ponds for several years until their toxicity is reduced to acceptable levels and consequently they pose a significant environmental risk. Removal of NAs is of great environmental importance. This study used a marine sediment that had previous exposure to long-term hydrocarbon contamination as an inoculum in aerobic NA degradation experiments.