Remediation of bitumen-contaminated sand grains: development of a protocol for washing performance evaluation

• Author / Creator

  Mani, Farnaz

• In the development of a non-aqueous bitumen extraction process, a major obstacle is solvent loss due to hydrocarbon attachment to the reject sand grains. A proposed
  solution to this problem is to wash (i.e. remediate) the oil-contaminated sand grains with water and surfactants. This research is focused on developing a protocol to
  evaluate the performance of particular surfactant types and water chemistry; emphasis was placed on using minimal amounts of water to recover the residual oil.
  To start, a series of jar tests were conducted (using heptane and hexadecane as solvents)to study the phase behaviours of oil-water-surfactant ternary systems. This
  was followed by the development of a new washing protocol for the purpose of evaluating remediation performance. Finally, the correlation between overall remediation
  performance and the oil-water interfacial tension was discussed.

• Subjects / Keywords

  • Contaminated Sand
  • Remediation
  • Bitumen
  • Washing

• Graduation date

  Spring 2010

• Type of Item

  Thesis

• Degree

  Master of Science

• DOI

  https://doi.org/10.7939/R3T94X

• 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.