Full-scale testing at three waste- water 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.