Treatment of Tar Sand Wastewaters with Activated Carbon, Ozone and Reverse Osmosis

Tar sand deposits offer long-term potential for satisfying future energy needs. Two large field-scale extraction experiments near Vernal, Utah, employed either a sequenced reverse-forward combustion technique (TS-2C) or a steam flooding procedure (TS-1 S) to recover in-place bitumen. This report documents the evaluation of activated carbon, ozone and reverse osmosis in treating the two types of tar sand wastewaters. Substrates included untreated and pretreated (filtration, foam fractionation, chemical treatment with ferric chloride) TS-1S and TS-2C wastewaters. Activated carbon, at a dose of 1,000 mg/L, reduced the Total Organic Carbon (TOC) of TS-1 S wastewater after treatment by 350 mg/L of ferric chloride to 2.3 mg/L TOC, a reduction of 91.6%. At the same adsorbent dos, activated carbon reduced the TOC in TS-2C wastewater from 678 mg/L to 546 mg/L. A study of the six commercially available adsorbents yielded little difference in adsorption capability for either wastewater. Ozonation of TS-lS wastewater after pretreatment by either foam fractionation or chemical treatment with ferric chloride then activated carbon yielded residual TOC levels of less than 1.2 mg/L. Reverse osmosis (RO) studies included investigation of four membrane types (cellulose acetate, poly-ether amide, poly-ether urea and a noncellulosic on a poly-sulfone base), three applied pressure levels (250, 400 and 550 psig) and two solution pH levels (5.5 and 7.8) with 5.0 µ (micron) filtered TS-2C wastewater as the substrate. A two-stage RO process achieved maximum organic and inorganic rejections of 98% and 97%, respectively.