BioLargo Spotlight: AOS and SAGD Water Grant

Re-posted from biolargo.blogspot.com
 
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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