Waste Containment Ponds Are a Major Source of Secondary Organic Aerosol Precursors from Oil Sands Operations
Copyright © 2020 American Chemical Society. The surface mining and bitumen extraction of oil sands (OS) generates over one million barrels of heavy oil each day in the Alberta Oil Sands Region of Canada. Recent observations suggest that emissions from OS development contribute to secondary organic a...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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American Chemical Society (ACS)
2021
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| Online Access: | https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/138418.2 |
| _version_ | 1811092943742697472 |
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| author | Drollette, Brian D Gentner, Drew R Plata, Desiree L |
| author2 | Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering |
| author_facet | Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering Drollette, Brian D Gentner, Drew R Plata, Desiree L |
| author_sort | Drollette, Brian D |
| collection | MIT |
| description | Copyright © 2020 American Chemical Society. The surface mining and bitumen extraction of oil sands (OS) generates over one million barrels of heavy oil each day in the Alberta Oil Sands Region of Canada. Recent observations suggest that emissions from OS development contribute to secondary organic aerosol (SOA) formation, but the chemical composition, mass fluxes, and sources of those emissions are poorly delineated. Here, we simulated OS extraction and used comprehensive two-dimensional gas chromatography to quantify and characterize direct air emissions, bitumen froth, residual wastewater, and tailings components, ultimately enabling fate modeling of over 1500 chromatographic features simultaneously. During the non-ice cover season, tailings ponds emissions contributed 15000-72000 metric tonnes of hydrocarbon SOA precursors, translating to 3000-13000 tonnes of SOA, whereas direct emissions during the extraction process itself were notably smaller (960 ± 500 tonnes SOA yr-1). These results suggest that tailings pond waste management practices should be targeted to reduce environmental emissions. |
| first_indexed | 2024-09-23T15:36:40Z |
| format | Article |
| id | mit-1721.1/138418.2 |
| institution | Massachusetts Institute of Technology |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-09-23T15:36:40Z |
| publishDate | 2021 |
| publisher | American Chemical Society (ACS) |
| record_format | dspace |
| spelling | mit-1721.1/138418.22021-12-10T23:30:42Z Waste Containment Ponds Are a Major Source of Secondary Organic Aerosol Precursors from Oil Sands Operations Drollette, Brian D Gentner, Drew R Plata, Desiree L Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering Copyright © 2020 American Chemical Society. The surface mining and bitumen extraction of oil sands (OS) generates over one million barrels of heavy oil each day in the Alberta Oil Sands Region of Canada. Recent observations suggest that emissions from OS development contribute to secondary organic aerosol (SOA) formation, but the chemical composition, mass fluxes, and sources of those emissions are poorly delineated. Here, we simulated OS extraction and used comprehensive two-dimensional gas chromatography to quantify and characterize direct air emissions, bitumen froth, residual wastewater, and tailings components, ultimately enabling fate modeling of over 1500 chromatographic features simultaneously. During the non-ice cover season, tailings ponds emissions contributed 15000-72000 metric tonnes of hydrocarbon SOA precursors, translating to 3000-13000 tonnes of SOA, whereas direct emissions during the extraction process itself were notably smaller (960 ± 500 tonnes SOA yr-1). These results suggest that tailings pond waste management practices should be targeted to reduce environmental emissions. 2021-12-10T23:30:41Z 2021-12-10T15:00:10Z 2021-12-10T23:30:41Z 2020 2021-12-10T14:48:49Z Article http://purl.org/eprint/type/JournalArticle 1520-5851 https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/138418.2 Drollette, Brian D, Gentner, Drew R and Plata, Desiree L. 2020. "Waste Containment Ponds Are a Major Source of Secondary Organic Aerosol Precursors from Oil Sands Operations." Environmental Science and Technology, 54 (16). en https://dx.doi.org/10.1021/ACS.EST.0C01735 Environmental Science and Technology Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/ application/octet-stream American Chemical Society (ACS) Prof. Plata |
| spellingShingle | Drollette, Brian D Gentner, Drew R Plata, Desiree L Waste Containment Ponds Are a Major Source of Secondary Organic Aerosol Precursors from Oil Sands Operations |
| title | Waste Containment Ponds Are a Major Source of Secondary Organic Aerosol Precursors from Oil Sands Operations |
| title_full | Waste Containment Ponds Are a Major Source of Secondary Organic Aerosol Precursors from Oil Sands Operations |
| title_fullStr | Waste Containment Ponds Are a Major Source of Secondary Organic Aerosol Precursors from Oil Sands Operations |
| title_full_unstemmed | Waste Containment Ponds Are a Major Source of Secondary Organic Aerosol Precursors from Oil Sands Operations |
| title_short | Waste Containment Ponds Are a Major Source of Secondary Organic Aerosol Precursors from Oil Sands Operations |
| title_sort | waste containment ponds are a major source of secondary organic aerosol precursors from oil sands operations |
| url | https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/138418.2 |
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