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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...

Spring 2022

Erland, Broghan

To combat global warming, Canada has committed to reducing greenhouse gases (GHGs) 40-45% below 2005 emission levels by 2025. Monitoring emissions and deriving accurate inventories are essential to reaching these goals. GHGs can be measured at a small scale, often using ground measurements which...

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 2011

Hooshiar Fard, Mohammad Ali

Production of oil from the second largest oil deposit in the world, i.e., the Alberta oil sands containing approximately 13% of total proven oil reserves in the world (169.9 billion barrels), has been shown to be significantly influenced by clay minerals. Clay minerals in particular play a key...

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...

Spring 2019

Zheng, Xiaochuan

This thesis aims to demonstrate the feasibility of using System Dynamics (SD) techniques to develop a transparent, open-source and reproducible model capable of simulating long-term soil water dynamics in a tailings-cap system subject to upward flux from a consolidating tailings substrate. The...

Spring 2020

Zhang, Dingfang

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...