This decommissioned ERA site remains active temporarily to support our final migration steps to https://ualberta.scholaris.ca, ERA's new home. All new collections and items, including Spring 2025 theses, are at that site. For assistance, please contact erahelp@ualberta.ca.
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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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Fall 2016
Caustic is the most commonly used process aid to improve processability of mineable oil sands ores in the Athabasca region. The addition of caustic adjusts the pH of the extraction process, disperses clays, and acts as a water softener. Understanding how these changes affect the fundamental...
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Spring 2013
Sodium hydroxide (NaOH) is used as a chemical additive to enhance bitumen recovery from oil sands by surface-mining extraction process. The addition of NaOH adjusts the pH of the slurry water to pH ~8.5 (approximate pH of process water). The change in pH of oil sand slurry affects the process...