Discovery may aid oilsands cleanup
|Mohamed Hamid Mohamed is working on a new filtration material to treat oilsands process water. Photo: Lisa Buchanan|
By Lisa Buchanan
A novel filtration material developed at the University of Saskatchewan as part of
Discovery may aid oilsands cleanup
|Mohamed Hamid Mohamed is working on a new filtration material to treat oilsands process water. Photo: Lisa Buchanan|
By Lisa Buchanan
A novel filtration material developed at the University of Saskatchewan as part of a PHD thesis may offer a green solution to contaminated oilsands process water.
Mohamed Hamid Mohamed’s PHD thesis research placed among the top 12 national finalists honoured by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) at the 2011 Innovation Challenge Awards in Ottawa.
The awards honour graduate students who have demonstrated an entrepreneurial spirit by identifying ways in which their research thesis results can be developed into products and processes to benefit Canadians.
Mohamed is investigating ways to remove corrosive acids from oilsands process water. His project, the only finalist project not already at the commercialization stage, was deemed by the judges to show great potential.
Crude oil contains naphthenic acids which lead to corrosion problems in oil refineries, so the oil must be washed and the waste water cannot be reused.
“During oilsands production, the industry uses a lot of water to wash the crude oil. As a result, naphthenic acids are introduced into the water,” says Mohamed, now an NSERC Visiting Fellow with both the U of S and Environment Canada.
The contaminated water is collected and stored in large tailing ponds, unable to be safely returned to the environment.
Working at Environment Canada’s Hydrology Research Centre in collaboration with the U of S chemistry department, Mohamed is using materials science to help decontaminate oilsands process water.
“This work represents a major contribution to oilsands research,” says assistant chemistry professor Lee Wilson, who is Mohammed’s co-supervisor.
Once the federal government determines standards for cleaning and returning the water to the environment, oil producers will be looking for an efficient, cost-effective and environmentally friendly method of purifying the water used to wash crude oil, he say