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Spring 2013

Wang, Shiqing

Two inorganic-organic hybrid polymers, Al(OH)3-polyacrylamide (Al-PAM) and Fe(OH)3-polyacrylamide (Fe-PAM) were synthesized and used in flocculating model tailings (5 wt% kaolin suspensions) and laboratory extraction tailings. For comparison, a commercial anionic flocculant, partially hydrolyzed...

Spring 2013

Ansari, Nesma Nasir

Solvents are ubiquitously used in oil sands extraction industry to enhance the separation of bitumen froth. With developing new technologies such as non-aqueous bitumen extraction, the need to track solvent interactions with oil sands components throughout the extraction process and to identify...

Spring 2013

Wang, Louxiang

As one of the most critical steps to recover valuable particles from a slurry using flotation, knowledge of the drainage of the thin liquid film between an air bubble and a solid surface is required. The main focus of this thesis is to develop and use an integrated thin film drainage appratus...

Fall 2012

Ma, Yuan

Two major kinds of natural surfactants are released during oil sands extraction: carboxylic acids (naphthenic acids) and sulfonic acids. In this study, commercial surfactants were used as standards to establish the suitable analytical methods with optimized experimental and instrumental...

Spring 2012

Flury, Christopher T.

To understand the role of caustic addition and its effect on the bitumen extraction process, a novel flow cell and a Denver Cell extraction unit were utilized. This allowed for the comparison of sodium hydroxide and ammonium hydroxides effect on real oil sands ores. Several ores (A1, C-ore,...

Fall 2012

Khademi, Sima

Stabilization of water droplets in froth treatment process results in poor de-watering efficiency and potentially affects final bitumen quality. The purpose of this research is to study the effect of solid contamination by diluted bitumen on water droplet stabilization in water in oil emulsions....

Fall 2011

Ji, Yiming

This project was initiated to study the H2S removal process from liquid sulfur and later extended to generic liquid degassing scenarios. Enersul HyspecTM Degassing Process was first field tested so that comparison could be made with new units to be engineered. Two new degassing units were...

Fall 2011

Lin, Fangjian

Slurry stability is an important factor in Chemical Mechanical Polishing (CMP) efficiency. However, few studies have been done in this respect. In settling tests at pH 4, adding various amounts of ceria to colloidal silica slurries was shown to change the stability of the resulted mixed abrasive...

Spring 2011

Javaheri, Ali

The demand for a new solvent to treat oilsands was behind the purpose of this project; molecular dynamics simulation was used in this study. Supercritical water, supercritical carbon dioxide and other selected organic solvents in their supercritical state were studied. Meso-tetraphenyl porphyrin...

Fall 2011

Zhu, Ren

Carbon dioxide (CO2) was shown as a promising alternative for oil sands tailings treatment with economical and environmental benefits. This thesis aims to understand the role of CO2 addition in settling and densification of oil sands tailings. In this study, CO2 was pressurized into two...