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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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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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Fall 2014
The non-aqueous extraction process involves dilution of mined oil sand with an organic solvent (the “diluent”), followed by separation of unwanted materials (clays, silica sand, connate water, etc.) from the diluted bitumen. The main focus of this research is on the removal of fines solids from...
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Spring 2013
Removal of a drop from its substrate may be gradually (e.g. evaporation) or all at once (e.g. shedding). In this thesis, drop adhesion force as a base for understanding the all at once removal of a drop from its substrate, and drop evaporation in room temperature as one of the gradual removal...
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Dynamics of spontaneous initial spreading and spreading of a hydrodynamically driven droplet under the influence of surrounding pressure
DownloadFall 2021
We investigate experimentally the early time dynamics of spontaneous spreading of silicone oils with various viscosities at elevated surrounding pressures. The surrounding medium pressure is increased in a monotone fashion starting from atmospheric pressure to a maximum value of 30 megapascal...
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Effect of Temperature, Phase Change, and Chemical Additive on Interfacial Properties and Performance of Steam Applications
DownloadFall 2019
When considering the wettability state during steam applications, we find that most issues remain unanswered. Removal of polar groups from the rock surface with increasing temperature improves water wettability; however, other factors, including phase change, play a reverse role. In other words,...
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Fabrication and Characterization of Photolithographically Patterned Rough Surfaces Demonstrating Extreme Contact Angle Behavior
DownloadFall 2014
This thesis features experimental work done to fabricate and characterize silicon surfaces patterned using photolithographic techniques, both standard and novel, to produce a variety of surfaces with roughness of controlled geometric properties. In specific, one set of the surfaces fabricated...
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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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Fall 2015
Drop transfer from one solid surface to another through stretching liquid bridges between them is important for many industrial applications. Due to the different dominate forces, three possible regimes exist: Quasi-static Regime, where the transfer process is only dominated by surface forces;...