Effect of Caustic Type on Bitumen Extraction from Canadian Oil Sands

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• 作者：Christopher Flury ; Artin Afacan ; Marjan Tamiz Bakhtiari ; Johan Sjoblom ; Zhenghe Xu
• 刊名：Energy & Fuels
• 出版年：2014
• 出版时间：January 16, 2014
• 年：2014
• 卷：28
• 期：1
• 页码：431-438
• 全文大小：306K
• ISSN：1520-5029

文摘

The role of different types of caustics in bitumen extraction from Canadian oil sands is investigated by analyzing their effect on subprocesses involved in bitumen extraction. Both sodium hydroxide and ammonium hydroxide were shown to improve bitumen liberation, which is favorable for bitumen recovery, but increased induction time of bitumen鈥揵ubble attachment, which is harmful for bitumen recovery. Although a similar performance was observed at pH of 8.5, at pH 11.3, the use of ammonium hydroxide led to a shorter induction time of bitumen鈥揵ubble attachment and, hence, better bitumen recovery than the use of sodium hydroxide to achieve the same slurry pH. The better performance of ammonium hydroxide is attributed to a more hydrophobic surface and a less negative zeta potential of bitumen in the process water because of the release of less amount of natural surfactants in ammonium hydroxide solutions than in sodium hydroxide solutions of the same solution pH. Overall, ammonium hydroxide was found to be a suitable replacement for sodium hydroxide. Although this study was mainly concerned with mining鈥揺xtraction operations, the major findings derived from this study could be applied readily to in situ thermal bitumen production operations, because ammonia can be delivered with steam to oil sands formations.