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Liquid Fuels from Oil Sands
Published in Prasenjit Mondal, Ajay K. Dalai, Sustainable Utilization of Natural Resources, 2017
Majorly, the bitumen is extracted via two techniques: surface mining and steam-assisted gravity drainage (SAGD). The latter is used in places where bituminous deposits are too deep to be mined. For surface mining, large trucks and shovels are used, and the oil sand is transported via big trucks to the extraction facility. It is then crushed and conveyed to the rotary drums (see Figure 5.1). In the rotary drum, hot water and chemical agent (caustic) are added. The hot water reduces the viscosity of bitumen and makes it flow. The water, sand, and bitumen mixture is then transferred to the gravity settler/separator. The bitumen froth being lighter stays on the top, and the water, sand, and chemical mixture in the bottom of the separator is sent to the tailing ponds for treatment. The bitumen froth is treated with hydrocarbon solvent (naphtha, hexanes) in the froth treatment unit, and the extracted bitumen is sent for upgrading (Sustainable Development of Oil Sands-Challenges in Recovery and Use 2006; The Oil Sand Extraction Process2008; Diagram of Oil Sands Mining and Extraction 2016; Sensors for Mining and Bitumen Extraction 2016). The extraction of bitumen from oil sands using the hot water drum process is a big component of oil extraction, and bitumen recovery determines the economics of the entire oil sands to liquid fuels process. Masliyah et al. (2004) have discussed in detail the water-based extraction of bitumen from oil sands in their review paper.
Prediction of dynamic interfacial tension of bitumen-water system using a reliable approach: application in enhanced bitumen recovery
Published in Energy Sources, Part A: Recovery, Utilization, and Environmental Effects, 2020
Sina Jafary, Puyan Bakhshi, Navid Daryasafar
The oil sand ore, typically consisting of about 6–13 wt% bitumen, is located close to the surface. Surface mining is an effective process for exploiting these oil sands, though it is only economically applicable to reservoirs having a depth of less than 70 m. Upon leaving the last centrifuge in the froth treatment plant, the bitumen product still contains 2–3% water. Such water-in-bitumen emulsions are known to be very stable and resist coalescence under centrifugation. It is necessary that the emulsion is broken down so as to coalesce the water droplets and to remove the aqueous phase prior to any oil refining or upgrading. Thus it is vital to fully grasp the interfacial properties of the water-in-bitumen emulsions such as interfacial tension (Tsamantakis et al. 2005; Yan, Elliott, and Masliyah 1999).