The production of oil from oil sands in northern Alberta has led to the generation of large volumes of oil sands process-affected water (OSPW) that was reported to be toxic to aquatic and other living organisms. The toxicity of OSPW has been attributed to the complex nature of OSPW matrix including the inorganic and organic compounds primarily naphthenic acids (NAs: C_nH_2n+ZO_x). In the present study, granular activated carbon (GAC) adsorption was investigated for its potential use to treat raw and ozonated OSPW. The results indicated that NA species removal increased with carbon number (n) for a fixed Z number; however, the NA species removal decreased with Z number for a fixed carbon number. The maximum adsorption capacities obtained from Langmuir adsorption isotherm based on AEF and NAs were 98.5 mg and 60.9 mg AEF/g GAC and 60 mg and 37 mg NA/g GAC for raw and ozonated OSPW, respectively. It was found that the Freundlich isotherm model best fits the acid-extractable fraction (AEF) and NA equilibrium data (r² ≥ 0.88). The adsorption kinetics showed that the pseudo-second order and intraparticle diffusion models were both appropriate in modeling the adsorption kinetics of AEF and NAs to GAC (r² ≥ 0.97). Although pore diffusion was the rate limiting step, film diffusion was still significant for assessing the rate of diffusion of NAs. This study could be helpful to model, design and optimize the adsorption treatment technologies of OSPW and to assess the performance of other adsorbents.

在艾伯塔省北部的油砂中生产石油，已导致产生了大量的油砂，受过程影响的水（OSPW），据报道该水对水生生物和其他生物具有毒性。OSPW的毒性归因于OSPW基质的复杂性质，包括无机和有机化合物，主要是环烷酸（NAs：C _n H _{2n + Z} O _x）。在本研究中，研究了颗粒状活性炭（GAC）吸附在处理原始和臭氧化OSPW中的潜在用途。结果表明，对于固定的Z值，NA的去除率随碳原子数（n）的增加而增加；但是，对于固定碳数，NA去除率随Z值的降低而降低。基于AEF和NAs从Langmuir吸附等温线获得的最大吸附容量分别为原始和臭氧化OSPW分别为98.5 mg和60.9 mg AEF / g GAC和60 mg和37 mg NA / g GAC。发现Freundlich等温模型最适合酸可提取馏分（AEF）和NA平衡数据（r ² ≥0.88）。吸附动力学表明，伪二阶和内扩散模型是在AEF和NAS的吸附动力学建模以GAC（R两者的适当²  ≥0.97）。尽管孔扩散是限速步骤，但是膜扩散对于评估NAs的扩散速度仍然很重要。这项研究可能有助于对OSPW的吸附处理技术进行建模，设计和优化，以及评估其他吸附剂的性能。