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Study of Bitumen Liberation from Oil Sands Ores
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- Author / Creator
- SrinivasaRajagopalan, Sundeep
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To better understand bitumen conditioning stage in oil sands extraction process a flow cell was designed to study bitumen liberation directly from sand grains, using real oil sand ore. A high-grade oil sand ore was subjected to various water temperatures and pH values to examine the bitumen liberation. The effect of weathering of the high-grade ore and the presence of salt in the water were also examined to evaluate their effect on bitumen liberation.
Bitumen liberation was found to be critically and proportionately dependent on solution (water) temperature and pH values. A high temperature of 46C and pH value of 11.3 promoted fast liberation with a high bitumen liberation. High salt concentration complemented with a high pH value was found to be detrimental to bitumen liberation from a high-grade ore. Overall, this novel setup provided distinct, high quality images and interesting results, which aided in understanding the critical parameters behind bitumen liberation from an oil sand ore.
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- Subjects / Keywords
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- Graduation date
- Fall 2010
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- Type of Item
- Thesis
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- Degree
- Master of Science
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- License
- This thesis is made available by the University of Alberta Libraries with permission of the copyright owner solely for non-commercial purposes. This thesis, or any portion thereof, may not otherwise be copied or reproduced without the written consent of the copyright owner, except to the extent permitted by Canadian copyright law.