Process for Solvent Extraction of Bitumen from Oil Sand

Wu, Junping; Dąbroś, Tadeusz

doi:10.1021/ef201457m

Cited by 86 publications

(86 citation statements)

References 7 publications

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“…The sand material in the oil sands would have similar surface properties to the silica in the SFG experiments, but the fine solids were complex, including mainly quartz, kaolinite, and illite, with smaller quantities of carbonate and sulfide minerals. 26 The fine solids comprised the majority of the surface area exposed to bitumen, but the release of bitumen was still enhanced by the addition of ethanol. A second important criterion for performance of a solvent is the release of fine solids into the bitumen product, which is very sensitive to the amounts of fine solids and moisture in the oil sands ore. 26 The data of Table 2 show the amounts of fine solids released during the initial digestion and then in the second digestion and sieve washing.…”

Section: Energy and Fuelsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Solvent loss is a major issue associated with non-aqueous extraction. On the basis of an evaporation method reported by Wu et al, solvent loss is ∼4 barrels per 1000 barrels of bitumen production, 26 which produces a significant environmental impact. Cyclohexane is a preferred solvent for non-aqueous extraction compared to toluene because of its much lower toxicity.…”

Section: Energy and Fuelsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…This trend was likely due to the disruption of the moisture layers in the oil by the ethanol. The moisture is important for retention of fine solids by capillary forces, 26 so that dissolution of the moisture by a polar solvent component would give weakened binding of the fine solids.…”

Section: Energy and Fuelsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Binary Solvents with Ethanol for Effective Bitumen Displacement at Solvent/Mineral Interfaces

et al. 2015

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Displacements of bitumen from silica surfaces were studied using various solvents and binary mixtures of ethanol. It was found that single-component solvents, including water, toluene, cyclohexane, and ethanol, were not able to completely remove bitumen on silica. However, adding 5% ethanol to toluene greatly enhanced its ability to displace bitumen from the silica surface. Surface vibrational spectra obtained by sum frequency generation vibrational spectroscopy showed that no trace of bitumen could be detected on silica after treatment with the 5% ethanol−toluene mixture. Similar effects were observed for cyclohexane with 10% ethanol. The results suggested that binary solutions with amphiphilic components, such as ethanol, are effective solvents for release of bitumen from the mineral surface. This expectation was confirmed by batch extraction experiments on Athabasca oil sands samples using cyclohexane−ethanol solutions. ■ INTRODUCTIONSurface chemistry of bitumen has been gaining a great deal of interest because there are large deposits in oil sands available for further development to supply the future energy needs. Natural bitumen is the remnants of degraded conventional oils and usually mixed with large proportions of sand. In the oil sands, each grain of sand is surrounded by a slick of bitumen, and the bitumen content may vary from 1 to 18 wt %. 1 In the Athabasca deposits, more than 90% of the bitumen can be recovered using hot-water extraction techniques, in which water at 40−50°C is added to the crushed oil sands, allowing the bitumen to reduce its viscosity and separate from the sand. 2 However, the water-based extraction process is energy-intensive because of the large volumes of water, generating greenhouse gas emissions. Additionally, the accumulation of wet tailings creates a serious problem of mine reclamation and eventual treatment of the water. A number of oil sands deposits occur in areas with limited water and with physical properties unsuited to the aqueous process, including Utah and Kazakhstan. 3 These issues associated with water-based extraction processes may potentially be resolved using a non-aqueous extraction process, which uses solvents to separate bitumen and eliminate or reduce water intake in the extraction process. Because bitumen dissolves in the solvent, non-aqueous extraction can be carried out at ambient temperature and significantly lowers the energy demand. 4 Currently, very little is known about the bitumen/ mineral and solvent/mineral interfaces, and an effective solvent for bitumen separation remains unidentified.Bitumen is a complex mixture of hundreds of different types of organic molecules, and its complexity has thus far defied complete analysis of molecular structure and composition. 5,6 Studies have suggested that bitumen is composed primarily of polyaromatic hydrocarbons with heteroatoms, such as oxygen, nitrogen, and sulfur. The average molecular weight has been reported to be about 540−800 g/mol. 1 Generally, the components of bitumen are classified into two gro...

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Section: Energy and Fuelsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Energy and Fuelsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Binary Solvents with Ethanol for Effective Bitumen Displacement at Solvent/Mineral Interfaces

et al. 2015

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“…With recoveries of 80–95 %, this method is less sensitive to variation in the grade of the ore and the surface properties of the solids . Low‐boiling solvents can be recovered by evaporation from the waste stream, or gangue . Low losses of solvent in the gangue are essential for an economical process that is environmentally acceptable, and achieving such results on a commercial scale for oil sands is a major technological challenge .…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Vacuum drying of cyclohexane from solvent‐extracted oil sands gangue

et al. 2016

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Solvent‐based extraction has the potential to give higher bitumen recovery from mined oil sands without further accumulation of tailings ponds. A crucial aspect of this technology is the recovery of solvent from the solid waste stream, or gangue. Experiments were performed on gangue after cyclohexane extraction from high‐ and low‐grade oil sand ores to determine the effects of drying temperatures from 25 to 105 °C and pressures from 30 to 95 kPa. Increasing temperature and decreasing pressure both increased the mass flux of evaporating cyclohexane. The maximum mass flux of cyclohexane correlated strongly with cyclohexane vapour pressure at the oven temperature. The total time required to reach a target residual cyclohexane concentration of 250 mg/kg followed a power law relationship with both temperature and pressure, ranging from 300 to 9000 s depending on oven temperature and pressure. Evaporation of solvent was slower from the gangue from low‐grade ore, with a total completion time 3.2 ± 0.9 (n = 33) times longer compared to gangue from high‐grade ore at the same temperature and pressure. The higher water and fines contents of the gangue from low‐grade ore likely contributed to this result.

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“…The residual solvent content in the extracted oil sands tailings was the lowest for n-pentane and cyclopentane, which have the lowest boiling points among the tested solvents. The residual solvent content for cyclopentane after 20 min vacuum drying was 0.4% of the extracted bitumen or 550 mg/kg in the extraction tailings [14].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Extraction of Chemical Constituents of Bitumen Using a Mixed Solvent System

Odebunmi¹,

Olaremu²

2015

OJAppS

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Several solvents had been used to extract the SARA (Saturate, Aromatic, Resin and Asphaltene) constituents of bitumen. The quantification of such extracts also abounds in open literature but in this work an attempt was made to determine the quality of extraction as a feed stock for processing bitumen using a mixed solvent system. A mixture of heptane and toluene was used to compare with the standard method using heptane. The components were analysed for functional groups of compound types presented in them using Fourier Transform Infrared Spectrophotometry technique (FTIR). The quality of bitumen component extract was not significantly affected by the method of extraction as recommended by the ASTM. The components are mixture of different class of hydrocarbons such as saturated and unsaturated hydrocarbons which conformed to what had earlier been reported by other researchers.

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Process for Solvent Extraction of Bitumen from Oil Sand

Cited by 86 publications

References 7 publications

Binary Solvents with Ethanol for Effective Bitumen Displacement at Solvent/Mineral Interfaces

Binary Solvents with Ethanol for Effective Bitumen Displacement at Solvent/Mineral Interfaces

Vacuum drying of cyclohexane from solvent‐extracted oil sands gangue

Extraction of Chemical Constituents of Bitumen Using a Mixed Solvent System

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