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Spring 2015

Renaud, Richard

Solvent based extraction has the potential to supplant the current hot water based extraction process as the industry standard method for recovering bitumen from mined oil sand. It has the potential for higher bitumen recovery that is less sensitive to the grade of oil sand ore being processed....

Fall 2019

Poon, Ho Yin

Oil sands fluid fine tailings (FFT) are comprised of sand, silt, clay, residual organics, salt, trace metals and process-affected water (OSPW). In order to accommodate and remediate large amounts of FFT, a full-scale demonstration pit lake, where FFT was capped with a mixture of OSPW and fresh...

Fall 2014

Khan, Muhammad F

The extraction of bitumen from oil sands in Alberta, Canada, leads to the creation of tailings that are contained in lake-sized ponds under zero discharge policy. Stratification of tailings over time leads to the formation of mature fine tailings (MFT), an oil based emulsion containing residual...

Spring 2016

Entezari Najafabadi, Iman

The bitumen production from oil sands surface-mining operations produces large volumes of mineral wastes called tailings. Characterization of the oil sands tailings is of importance to monitor their state for trafficability and reclamation issues, to assess the tailings operation performance, and...

Fall 2020

Miles, Sarah, M

Current development of Alberta’s oil sands region requires large volumes of water, leading to an abundance of oil sands process affected water (OSPW). OSPW contains naphthenic acid fraction compounds (NAFCs) which have been found to contribute extensively to OSPW toxicity. Degradation of this...

Fall 2013

Zheng, Limin

The high degree of variability of oil sands ores can be attributed to a mixture of different geological end members, i.e., estuarine sand, estuarine clay, marine sand and marine clay. This study focused on the mineralogy, especially of clay minerals, and toluene insoluble organic matter, referred...

Fall 2014

Afshar, Shima

The current water-based method of bitumen extraction requires withdrawal of fresh water from the Athabasca River — a practice which leads to the continual buildup of tailings ponds and other environmental concerns. As Alberta’s bitumen production is expected to more than double by 2020, there is...

Fall 2017

Aghaie, Ermia

The present research was conducted with the intent of evaluating the degradation of OCTG (Oil Country Tubular Goods) steel used in SAGD (Steam Assisted Gravity Drainage) applications, and developing a promising surface modification method and a novel composite coating using a technique that will...

Fall 2014

Chen, Liang

The formation of stable water-in-oil emulsions during bitumen extraction poses problems for water separation from diluted bitumen, which leads to equipment corrosion and catalyst fouling in downstream operations. Demulsifiers are used to break the stable emulsions and assist the separation of...

Spring 2014

Guest, Stuart Dan

Seven Ni-WC tubular wires utilized in this study were characterized by the nickel sheath area, powder composition, and overall initial carbide volume fraction of the wire prior to welding. The electrical resistivity of steel, stainless steel, and Ni-WC welding consumables were measured from...