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Skip to Search Results- 2Shaw, John M. (Chemical and Materials Engineering)
- 2Yeung, Anthony (Chemical and Materials Engineering)
- 1Choi,Phillip (Chemical and Materials Engineering)
- 1Etsell, Thomas (Chemical & Materials Engineering)
- 1Gray, Murray (Chemical and Materials Engineering)
- 1Ivey, Douglas (Chemical & Materials Engineering)
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Spring 2020
Albertan oil sands ores are becoming more difficult to process efficiently as the clay content of the ore increases and the grade of the ore worsens. A key to improving the extraction of bitumen from low-grade oil sands, thereby increasing the longevity of this critical resource, is reducing the...
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Protecting Worker Safety in Alberta by Enhancing Hazard Identification and Control for Hazards Associated with Tailings Facilities, Dams, and Systems
DownloadSpring 2019
My research was motivated by a fatality that occurred at an oil sands tailings operation on January 19, 2014, when a worker drowned in an underground cavern which formed under a leaking tailings transport system. At the time of the incident, the organization and workers did not know that ground...
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Mimicking the Behaviors of Oil Contaminated Clays Using Functionalized Silica Nanoparticles
DownloadSpring 2018
Fine sand and clay particles arise naturally in diverse industrial and environmental remediation contexts. Organic compounds for example from oil production or oil spills can adsorb on their surface and influence their oil water interfacial behaviors. To isolate the impact of contamination and...
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Fall 2017
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...
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Fall 2017
Asphaltenes are the heaviest components in crude oil. It is generally believed that asphaltenes adsorbed at oil/water interface can form a protective layer to stabilize the water-in-oil emulsions. Therefore, it is of both fundamental and practical importance to understand the adsorption kinetics...
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Spring 2016
Non-aqueous extraction technologies are currently being investigated as an alternative to the conventional water based process for extracting bitumen from oil sands. The reduced dependence on fresh water and land for creation of tailing ponds makes non-aqueous technologies a greener alternative....
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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 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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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...
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Oil Upgrading by Molecular Rearrangement and Cracking: A Study Using Model Compounds and Natural Chabazite
DownloadFall 2015
As demand for fuel increases, new technologies that can convert heavy oil and bitumen into light fuels are needed. Natural zeolites have been proven to catalyze reactions that decrease molecular weight, density, nitrogen, and metals content as well as vacuum residue content when mixed with raw...