Isolation and characterization of amorphous solids from oil sands fine tailings

摘要

The hot water process used by Suncor and Syncrude to extract bitumen from the Athabasca oil sands produces tailings with about 35 % more volume than that occupied by the bituminous sands before mining. This increase is largely the result of water hold-up in the fines fraction from the tailings, arising primarily from the 'middlings' treatment circuit. Our recent work suggests that approximately 50% of these fines consist of amorphous clays. In this investigation we have developed fractionation methodology to separate amorphous solids from Syncrude fine tailings. This fraction has been characterized by elemental analysis, X-ray diffraction, XPS, SEM, infrared spectroscopy, and surface area measurement.