OIL SANDS TAILINGS WATER TREATMENT PROCESS USING ENTRAPPED AND BIOAUGMENTED CULTURE INDIGENOUS TO TAILINGS POND

摘要

A biological process for treating oil sands tailings water containingnaphthenic acids. Theprocess consists of bioaugmentation followed by entrapment of bacterialcultures indigenous tooil sands tailings pond. Bioaugmentation of indigenous cultures is achieved byaddition oforiginal aerobic cultures isolated from oil sands ore under aerobic condition.Entrapment ofbioaugmented indigenous cultures is carried out by using synthetic polymer asentrapmentmedia. Entrapped and bioaugmented indigenous cultures can be used in varioustypes of reactorsfor tailings water treatment under different circumstances. Submerged orcontinuous flowbioreactors can be installed at various stages in the oil sands bitumenextraction process toremove naphthenic acids from tailings water under aerobic condition.