The reclamation of oil sands process-affected water (OSPW) is a matter of environmental importance because of the aquatic toxicity to biota. This study describes refinements in advanced analytical methods to assess the performance of biological treatment systems for OSPW, such as constructed wetland treatment systems (CWTSs). Assessment of treatment efficiency by measurement of the degradation of naphthenic acid fraction compounds (NAFCs) in OSPW is challenging in CWTS due to potentially interfering constituents such as humic acids, organic acids, salts, and hydrocarbons. Here we have applied a previous weak anion exchange (WAX) solid-phase extraction (SPE) method and high-resolution Orbitrap-mass spectrometry (MS) to remove major interferences from the NAFC analysis. The refinements in data processing employing principal component analysis (PCA) indicates that the relative abundance of NAFCs decreased with time in the treated OSPW relative to the untreated OSPW. The most saturated NAFCs with higher carbon numbers were relatively more degraded as compared to unsaturated NAFCs. The use of Kendrick plots and van Krevelen plots for assessment of the performance of the CWTS is shown to be well-suited to detailed monitoring of the complex composition of NAFCs as a function of degradation. The developments and application of analytical methods such as the WAX SPE method and high-resolution Orbitrap-MS are demonstrated as tools enabling the advancement of CWTS design and optimization, enabling passive or semi-passive water treatment systems to be a viable opportunity for OSPW treatment.

中文翻译：

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人工湿地处理系统中环烷酸馏分化合物降解的分子水平表征研究进展

由于对生物群的水生毒性，对油砂工艺影响水（OSPW）的回收对环境具有重要意义。这项研究描述了先进的分析方法的改进，以评估OSPW生物处理系统的性能，例如人工湿地处理系统（CWTS）。在CWTS中，通过测量OSPW中环烷酸馏分化合物（NAFC）的降解来评估治疗效率是一项挑战，因为它可能会干扰诸如腐殖酸，有机酸，盐和碳氢化合物等成分。在这里，我们已经应用了以前的弱阴离子交换（WAX）固相萃取（SPE）方法和高分辨率Orbitrap质谱仪（MS），以消除NAFC分析中的主要干扰。使用主成分分析（PCA）进行数据处理的改进表明，相对于未处理的OSPW，处理过的OSPW中NAFC的相对丰度随时间降低。与不饱和NAFC相比，碳原子数最高的最饱和NAFC降解程度相对较高。结果表明，使用肯德里克图和范克雷维伦图评估CWTS的性能非常适合于详细监测作为降解函数的NAFC的复杂组成。WAX SPE方​​法和高分辨率Orbitrap-MS等分析方法的开发和应用被证明是可促进CWTS设计和优化的工具，使被动或半被动水处理系统成为OSPW处理的可行机会。