Using Specified Risk Materials-Based Peptides for Oil Sands Fluid Fine Tailings Management

Fluid fine tailings are produced in huge quantities by Canada’s mined oil sands industry. Due to the high colloidal stability of the contained fine solids, settling of fluid fine tailings can take hundreds of years, making the entrapped water unavailable and posing challenges to public health and the environment. This study focuses on developing value-added aggregation agents from specified risk materials (SRM), a waste protein stream from slaughterhouse industries, to achieve an improved separation of fluid fine tailings into free water and solids. Settling results using synthetic kaolinite slurries demonstrated that, though not as effective as hydrolyzed polyacrylamide, a commercial flocculant, the use of SRM-derived peptides enabled a 2-3-fold faster initial settling rate than the blank control. The pH of synthetic kaolinite tailings was observed to be slightly reduced with increasing peptides dosage in the test range (10–50 kg/ton). The experiments on diluted fluid fine tailings (as a representation of real oil sands tailings) demonstrated an optimum peptides dosage of 14 kg/ton, which resulted in a 4-fold faster initial settling rate compared to the untreated tailings. Overall, this study demonstrates the novelty and feasibility of using SRM-peptides to address intractable oil sands fluid tailings.