Full-scale testing at three wastewater treatment plants confirmed that the optimum polymer dose could be identified and adjusted as needed by monitoring the lowest centrate or filtrate absorbance at or around 190 nm (Di- Massimo and Örmeci, 2015).
The objectives of this study were to: 1. Propose an absorbance based method to determine the polymer concentration in oil sands tailings; 2. Investigate whether the optimum polymer dose re- quired to thicken and dewater oil sands tailings can be determined by measuring the absorbance of the tailings supernatant at 190 nm; 3. Determine the detection limit and sensitivity of the method in tailings; and 4. Evaluate the effect of fines, salinity, and pH on polymer detection. If results are promising, it would be possible to design a system that can identify the optimum polymer dose in real-time and adjust the polymer dose accordingly using an in-line UV–vis spectrophotometer.