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Skip to Search Results- 120Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies (GPS), Faculty of
- 120Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies (GPS), Faculty of/Theses and Dissertations
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Fall 2011
Oxidative desulfurization of oil sands bitumen as pre-refining methodology to improve bitumen quality in the absence of catalysts was studied. It has potential advantages such as employing a cheap reagent (air) and moderate processing conditions (<180 °C, autogenous pressure). The specific aims...
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Fall 2015
Oil sands found in Athabasca and Cold Lake regions of Northern Alberta form Canada’s primary source of energy reserves. Asphaltenes, a significant part of bitumen is often considered to be the least valuable component of crude oil due to various factors such as difficulty in transporting and...
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Beyond Viscosity—How Density, Vibration and Interfacial Tension Affect Solvent Aided Bitumen Production
DownloadFall 2016
Bitumen and heavy oil comprise a significant percentage of proven oil reserves globally. The environmental impacts of producing these resources with current technologies is a concern for environmentalists, oil producing companies, resource rich jurisdictions and society at large. Dilution of the...
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Bitumen Extraction, Indigenous Land Conflicts, and Environmental Change in the Athabasca Oil Sands Region, 1963-1993
DownloadSpring 2021
This dissertation examines the first development phase of the Alberta oil sands industry from the 1960s to the early 1990s. It draws on public and private records from archives in Canada and the United States, the results of collaborative research with the Fort McMurray Métis, and oral history...
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Spring 2016
During the extraction of crude oil or bitumen, stable water-in-oil emulsions are inevitably formed. The emulsified water contains chloride ions and other organic acidic compounds that cause severe corrosion problems to the downstream plant equipment, creating operational and safety issues and...
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Spring 2015
The minable oil sands extraction process can be understood on a scale of a single oil sand grain. When the oil sand ore is mixed with warm water, each sand granule is initially covered with bitumen film which ruptures under the composite effect of shear and interfacial forces, while water...
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Fall 2011
The growing interest in the oilsands bitumen reserves, a large portion of which is unattainable by current industrial processes, has generated a need for an improved process for oilsands extracting and upgrading. The effects of using chabazite as a catalyst for cracking and upgrading of oilsands...
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Fall 2023
At the heart of heavy oil and bitumen upgrading, thermal conversion technologies are found. One such process is visbreaking where bitumen is thermally converted into lighter materials. However, the conversion by visbreaking is limited by the onset of the formation of solid carbonaceous materials...
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Characterization of asphaltene molecular structures by cracking under hydrogenation conditions and prediction of the viscosity reduction from visbreaking of heavy oils
DownloadSpring 2013
The chemical building blocks that comprise petroleum asphaltenes were determined by cracking samples under conditions that minimized alterations to aromatic and cycloalkyl groups. Hydrogenation conditions that used tetralin as hydrogen-donor solvent, with an iron-based catalyst, allowed...
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Characterization of Athabasca asphaltenes separated physically and chemically using small-angle X-ray scattering
DownloadFall 2010
Athabasca asphaltenes were characterized using small-angle X-ray scattering (SAXS) with synchrotron radiation. Two methods were used to separate asphaltenes from Athabasca bitumen. Conventional chemical separation by precipitation with n-pentane, and physical separation realized by passing...