Improving Screening Methods for Chemical Selection in Fluid Tailings Treatment

北方阿尔伯塔理工学院（NAIT）油砂可持续发展中心（COSS）将与森科尔能源公司合作。改进油砂流体细尾矿（FFT）管理的聚合物解决方案的筛选、测试和验证方法。这项研究将扩大和完善森科尔的现有筛选过程中开发的尾矿减少业务（TRO），并将创建一个明确的筛选新商业化的永久性水产品储存解决方案（PASS）。此外，这项工作将扩大目前的TRO筛选过程，以评估其他性能指标，如长期岩土工程和地球化学性能。关于 ** 长期绩效的补充信息将有助于确保处理方法的可持续性。COSS将通过三个主题开发和/或改进聚合物筛选过程的方法。**（1）开发筛选方法以评估固结性能和强度增益。(2)开发实验室规模的快速筛选方法，以测量潜在关注污染物的稳定性和隔离。(3)开发筛选方法，以捕获运输距离和沉积能量对絮凝尾矿的坑内性能的影响。森科尔将提供技术咨询和NAIT将提供基础设施，项目管理和测试。通过这项研究，NAIT员工将成为方法开发和改进方面的技术专家，并将开发和发布可用于评估两种工艺的新化学品的方法。该项目将使油砂运营商能够轻松采用改进的尾矿化学品，从而使他们能够更快，更有效地以更低的成本回收退役矿山，从而使加拿大的环境受益。**

The Northern Alberta Institute of Technology (NAIT) Centre for Oil Sands Sustainability (COSS) will work with Suncor Energy inc. to improve the methodology of the screening, testing and validation of polymer-based solutions for oil sands fluid fine tailings (FFT) management. This research will expand and refine Suncor's existing screening processes developed for the Tailings Reduction Operations (TRO) and will create a clear screening for the newly commercialized Permanent Aquatic Storage Solution (PASS). In addition, this work will expand the current TRO screening process to evaluate additional performance indicators such as long-term geotechnical and geochemical performance. The additional information on**long-term performance will help ensure the sustainability of the treatment methods.****COSS will develop and/or improve methodologies of the polymer screening process through three themes. **(1) Developing screening methods to assess consolidation performance and strength gain. (2) Developing bench scale rapid screening methods to measure the stability and sequestration of contaminants of potential concern. (3) Developing screening methods to capture the influence of transportation distance and deposition energy on the in-pit performance of flocculated tailings. Suncor will provide technical advice and NAIT will provide the infrastructure, project management and testing. Through this study, NAIT staff will become technical experts in methodology development and refinement and methods will be developed and published that can be used to assess new chemistries for both processes.This project will benefit Canada's environment by enabling oil sands operators to easily adopt improved tailings chemistries that allow them to reclaim decommissioned mines faster, more efficiently and at a lower cost.**