Ferrate oxidation of distinct naphthenic acids species isolated from process water of unconventional petroleum production

Ferrate oxidation of distinct naphthenic acids species isolated from process water of unconventional petroleum production

Phase separation

Petroleum industry

Oil sands

Gasoline

Mass spectrometry

Oxidation

Aromatization

Aromatic compounds

Iron compounds

Naphthas

Organic acids

Reaction intermediates

Metal ions

Liquid chromatography

Fighter aircraft

Distinct naphthenic acid (NA) species were isolated from oil sands process water (OSPW) into 20 fractions via silver-ion solid phase extraction, prior to treatment using potassium ferrate(VI). Untreated and treated fractions F1F20 were characterized using ultra performance liquid chromatography traveling-wave ion mobility time-of-flight mass spectrometry to identify classical NAs (aliphatic O2NAs mainly found in fractions F1F4), aromatic NAs (aromatic O2NAs in F6F9), oxidized NAs (O3, O4, and O5NAs in F14F17), and sulfur-containing NAs (F16F19). The Fe(VI) oxidation reactivity of individual NA species was studied with minimized confounding effects from the complicated OSPW matrix. Aliphatic and aromatic O2NAs were found to have different reactivity towards Fe(VI) oxidation, with removals ranging from 3NAs and O4NAs from raw OSPW were recalcitrant species with slight degradation under Fe(VI) oxidation conditions. The Fe(VI) oxidation of O2NAs generated new O3NAs as byproducts or intermediate byproducts which finally resulted in more oxygen-rich OxNAs as the final byproducts depending on the Fe(VI) doses. Besides the obtained knowledge on chemical reactivity, current methodology (i.e., treatment of Ag-ion fractions of OSPW versus raw OSPW) could be applied to evaluate other treatment approaches as well as toxicity of distinct NA species for environmental applications. 2019

906-915

672

Science of the Total Environment

2019

Huang, Rongfu

Wang, Chengjin

Chelme-Ayala, Pamela

Fang, Zhi

Shi, Quan

Xu, Chunming

Gamal El-Din, Mohamed

journalArticle

489697

10.1016/j.scitotenv.2019.04.042