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Skip to Search Results- 1Afshar, Shima
- 1Amani, Mohammad Javad
- 1Bu, Weida
- 1Castillo Lugo, Javier
- 1Christopher, Street
- 1Dini, Yoann
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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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Spring 2017
The formation of stable water-in-oil emulsions during oil sands extraction process causes a number of operational issues, such as equipment corrosion, storage and transportation problems. One common method for emulsion breakup in industry is to use chemical demulsifiers. The chemical demulsifiers...
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Colloid Science of Sand Remediation: A Study Motivated by the Non-Aqueous Extraction of Bitumen from Oil Sands
DownloadFall 2014
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...
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A NEW APPROACH TO MODEL FRICTION LOSSES IN THE WATER-ASSISTED PIPELINE TRANSPORTATION OF HEAVY OIL AND BITUMEN
DownloadSpring 2016
Water lubricated pipe flow technology is an economic alternative for the long distance transportation of viscous oils like heavy oil and bitumen. The lubricated flow regime involves an oil-rich core surrounded by a turbulent water annulus. Energy consumption associated with this type of pipeline...
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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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The Roles of Constituent Minerals and Residual Bitumen in the Filtration of Alberta Oil Sands Tailings
DownloadFall 2022
The dewatering of Alberta oil sands tailings is one of the most challenging problems faced by the oil sands industry. Despite significant efforts in the past several decades, the industry still lacks viable technologies that can quickly dewater and reclaim the oil sands tailings and eliminate...
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Fall 2015
Oil sands bitumen is increasingly recovered by injecting steam into reservoirs using the energy intensive Steam assisted gravity drainage (SAGD) process. Interest in improving recovery and energy efficiencies have led to an interest in injecting light hydrocarbons along with or instead of steam...
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Spring 2010
The demand for accurate bitumen-pentane mass transfer data was the main motivation behind this research. Difficulties such as complex phase behavior, high viscosity and opacity of the hydrocarbon invariably lead to failure of conventional techniques to measure mass transfer coefficients...
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Fall 2018
There is a growing need to decrease the viscosity of bitumen using minimal diluent addition to reduce the cost of transportation. However, due to the inherently free radical rich nature of bitumen, even on exposure to low autoxidative conditions adverse effects on the viscosity and hardening of...
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Rheology of Bitumen at the Onset of Asphaltene Aggregation and its Effects on the Stability of Water-in-Oil Emulsion
DownloadFall 2015
Asphaltenes are the heaviest fraction of bitumen. Asphaltenes not only play an important role in the high viscosity of bitumen but also in the water-in-oil (W/O) emulsion stability. Nevertheless, their exact function in the stability mechanism of W/O emulsion still remains unresolved. It is...