Flocculation and dewatering of oil sands tailings with hyperbranched functional polyolefins

超支化功能聚烯烃对油砂尾矿的絮凝脱水

• 批准号: 490535-2015
• 负责人: Soares, Joao
• 金额: $ 6.64万
• 依托单位: University of Alberta
• 依托单位国家: 加拿大
• 项目类别: Collaborative Research and Development Grants
• 财政年份: 2016
• 资助国家: 加拿大
• 起止时间: 2016-01-01 至 2017-12-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nserc-crsng.gc.ca/ase-oro/Details-Detailles_eng.asp?id=601451
• 关键词: Flocculation; dewatering; oil; sands; tailings

The oil sands reserves in Alberta are a major Canadian natural resource. They are the third largest source of crude oil in the world, only surpassed by those of Saudi Arabia and Venezuela. Unfortunately, Canadians pay a high environmental price to use this valuable natural resource. The extraction process adopted by the oil sands industry produces about 1.5 barrels of fluid fine tailings for every barrel of bitumen processed. Tailings are a mixture of water, sand, clays, and residual bitumen. The tailings are transferred to ponds where the sand settles fast, but the fine clays remain suspended for a long time before significant settling takes place. After many years, a stable suspension containing about 30 wt% of fine clays, called mature fine tailings, is formed. Mature fine tailings have the consistency of yogurt. It is not possible to walk or drive on top of these ponds. Consequently, the area they occupy becomes a wasteland that cannot be recovered. It has been estimated that the accumulated volume of mature fine tailings will exceed one billion cubic meters by 2020. The continuing collection of tailings has created a severe environmental problem in Alberta because the current treatment technologies cannot significantly reduce the volumes of legacy and fresh tailings.

阿尔伯塔的油砂储量是加拿大的主要自然资源。它们是世界上第三大原油来源国，仅次于沙特阿拉伯和委内瑞拉。不幸的是，加拿大人为使用这一宝贵的自然资源付出了高昂的环境代价。油砂工业采用的提取工艺每加工一桶沥青产生约1.5桶流体细粒尾矿。尾矿是水、沙子、粘土和残余沥青的混合物。尾矿被转移到池塘中，在那里沙子快速沉降，但细粘土在发生显著沉降之前保持长时间悬浮。多年后，形成含有约30重量%的细粘土的稳定悬浮液，称为成熟细尾矿。成熟的细粒尾矿具有酸奶的稠度。不可能在这些池塘上行走或开车。因此，他们占领的地区成为无法恢复的荒地。预计到2020年，成熟细粒尾矿累计量将超过10亿立方米。尾矿的持续收集在阿尔伯塔造成了严重的环境问题，因为目前的处理技术不能显著减少遗留和新鲜尾矿的数量。