Twelve-year trends in ambient concentrations of volatile organic compounds in a community of the Alberta Oil Sands Region, Canada

2016 ◽  
Vol 91 ◽  
pp. 40-50 ◽  
Author(s):  
Md. Aynul Bari ◽  
Warren B. Kindzierski ◽  
David Spink
Keyword(s):  
Volatile Organic Compounds ◽  
Organic Compounds ◽  
Oil Sands ◽  
Volatile Organic ◽  
Alberta Oil Sands ◽  
Ambient Concentrations

First Comprehensive Measurements of Emission Rates of Greenhouse Gases, Volatile Organic Compounds and Reduced Sulfur Compounds from a Tailings Pond in the Alberta Oil Sands

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ralf Staebler ◽  
Samar Moussa ◽  
Yuan You ◽  
Hayley Hung ◽  
Maryam Moradi ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Carbon Dioxide ◽  
Volatile Organic Compounds ◽  
Organic Compounds ◽  
Oil Sands ◽  
Regulatory Compliance ◽  
Sulfur Compounds ◽  
Emission Rates ◽  
Reduced Sulfur Compounds ◽  
Volatile Organic ◽  
Reduced Sulfur

<p>Canada’s Oil Sands Region in northern Alberta contains the world’s largest deposits of commercially exploited bitumen. Extraction of synthetic crude oil from these deposits is a water intensive process, requiring large ponds for water recycling and/or final storage of tailings, already covering a total of over 100 km<sup>2</sup> of liquid surface area in the Athabasca Oil sands. The primary extraction tailings ponds primarily contain sand, silt, clay and unrecovered bitumen, while a few secondary extraction ponds also receive solvents and inorganic and organic by-products of the extraction process. Fugitive emissions of pollutants from these ponds to the atmosphere may therefore be a concern, but until recently, data on emission rates for many pollutants, other than a few reported under regulatory compliance monitoring, were sparse. We present here the results from a comprehensive field campaign to quantify the emissions from a secondary extraction pond to the atmosphere of 68 volatile organic compounds (VOCs), 22 polycyclic aromatic compounds (PACs), 8 reduced sulfur compounds as well as methane, carbon dioxide and ammonia. Three micrometeorological flux methods (eddy covariance, vertical gradients and inverse dispersion modeling) were evaluated for methane fluxes to ensure their mutual comparability. Methane and carbon dioxide fluxes were similar to previous results based on flux chamber measurements. Emission rates for 12 PACs, alkanes and aromatic VOCs, several sulfur species, and ammonia were found to be significant. PACs were dominated by methyl naphthalenes and phenanthrenes, while diethylsulfide and  and n-heptane were the dominant reduced sulfur and VOC species, respectively. The role of these previously unavailable emission rates in regional pollutant budgets will be discussed.</p>

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