Currently the US receives around 4,000,000 barrels a day from Canada, most of which is processed from oil sands. Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) and naphthenic acids (NAs) are toxic contaminants of environmental concern found in process water and tailings from the oil sands industry. BioTiger™ (BT), a patented microbial consortium, was found to cometabolically biodegrade the NA hexanoic acid and the PAH phenanthrene. BioTiger™ also biodegrades both HA and the PAH phenanthrene (Ph) when present in a mixture and biodegrades HA in the presence of phenanthrene and tailings. Hexanamide (HAM) was produced during cometabolism of HA. HAM was completely degraded under optimized pH and temperature conditions in heterotrophic media. It has been shown that BT at 30 C° is able to completely degrade 10 mM hexanoic acid (HA), a naphthenic acid, co-metabolically in 48 hours. The BT components were screened for biosurfactants (BS) production. Three of the BT strains were found to generate BS with the bacterial adhesion to hydrocarbons assay, seven with the <i>methylene blue active substances</i> assay, and nine with a hemolysis assay. BT produced BS with all three of the assays. The results demonstrate that BioTiger™ cometabolically biodegrades the PAH phenanthrene and the NA hexanoic acid in various combinations and that some components and the consortium produce biosurfactants. Evidence has shown that through enzymatic and biosurfactant production that BioTiger™ can be employed to improve bitumen recovery, tailings dewatering and sedimentation through natural bioprocesses.

Bioprocessing of oil sands tailings by the microbial consortium BioTiger™

254th National Meeting (2017)

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