Hello again from Edmonton,
this is BioLargo Water Senior Research Scientist Dr. Parastoo Pourrezaei. Today
I want to bring you some information about what I believe is one of our most
important development areas for the Advanced Oxidation System (AOS). As you may
know, the AOS is a powerful water treatment technology with great potential to
bring cost-efficient and reliable water treatment to diverse market
applications, and this includes oil and gas water treatment and reuse.
Within oil and gas water
treatment, there exists a very important application: the treatment and reuse
of water produced in steam assisted gravity drainage (SAGD) operations, a
process commonly used to extract bitumen from oil sands. In this process, steam
is injected underground to enable the extraction of bitumen from the formation,
and as a consequence of this, a significant amount of contaminated water is
produced, which we refer to as SAGD-produced water. Nowadays, there is a real
push in the industry to treat that SAGD-produced water and reuse it in the
process. By doing this, oil sands operations can avoid using an astronomical amount
of fresh water that would normally be used in the process and avoid discharging
an equally astronomical amount of highly contaminated water to the environment.
How
can BioLargo’s AOS help address the SAGD problem? We have established in lab studies
that the AOS is projected to be the most cost-efficient and energy-efficient option
for treatment of Oil Sands Process-Affected Water (OSPW) (water produced by
surface-mining in the oil sands), and that the AOS consistently eliminates 99%
of naphthenic acids from OSPW. We believe that the AOS can similarly address
SAGD water treatment and become the most energy- and cost-efficient solution
for removal of soluble organics from SAGD water.
In April 2018, we at BioLargo
started a new project, funded by the Natural Science and Engineering Research
Council (NSERC) of Canada, and in collaboration with leading SAGD researcher at
the University of Alberta Dr. Mohtada Sadrzadeh, to use a modified natural
adsorbent before the AOS to create robust, cost-efficient solution for
SAGD-produced water treatment and reuse. This project has the potential to
allow the AOS to reduce both freshwater use through recycling as well as water
contamination issues in Canada’s biggest and most influential industry, the oil
sands industry.
What is a BioLargo Spotlight?
It’s an exciting time
at BioLargo. We’re moving fast, and it can be difficult to keep our
stockholders and the investing public informed of our progress. In light of
this, we will be posting a series of short articles titled “BioLargo Spotlight”,
highlighting certain business activities and other important information in
between our required SEC filings. Of course, these do not replace our public
filings, which contain more complete information than can be delivered in this
forum, and thus we urge you to carefully read and rely on those filings for
definitive information, and to review our risk factors and caution regarding
forward-looking statements. We are optimistic about our business as we work
hard to continue to grow and ultimately generate profits for our
stockholders.
Legal Disclaimer
Our attorneys remind
us that while we believe these developments are important and that these small
victories could add up and lead to big victories, at this stage they do not
rise to the level of an official material disclosure. As the size and magnitude
of these developments become material, we will naturally report that
information in an 8-K and our regular SEC filings.
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