TORONTO: An effective and inexpensive process to remove contaminants from oil sands wastewater using only sunlight and nanoparticles has been developed by researchers.
Researchers from the University of Waterloo found that photocatalysis — a chemical reaction that involves the absorption of light by nanoparticles — can completely eliminate naphthenic acids in oil sands wastewater, and within hours.
Naphthenic acids pose a threat to ecology and human health. Water in tailing ponds left to biodegrade naturally in the environment still contains these contaminants decades later.
“With about a billion tonnes of water stored in ponds in Alberta, removing naphthenic acids is one of the largest environmental challenges in Canada,” said Tim Leshuk from the chemical engineering department at Waterloo, who led the study.
“Conventional treatments people have tried either haven’t worked, or if they have worked, they have been far too impractical or expensive to solve the size of the problem. Waterloo’s technology is the first step of what looks like a very practical and green treatment method,” he added.
This new technology is energy-efficient and relatively inexpensive, unlike conventional treatment methods such as treating polluted water with chlorine or membrane filtering.
Nanoparticles become extremely reactive when exposed to sunlight and break down the persistent pollutants in their individual atoms, completely removing them from the water.
This treatment depends on only sunlight for energy, and the nanoparticles can be recovered and reused indefinitely.
The study was published in the journal Chemosphere. (PTI)
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