Bitumen characterization during pulse plasma separation process**

加拿大拥有约24000亿桶沥青，被认为是世界上最大的油砂储量。约50亿桶沥青已被回收，**约1740亿桶沥青可通过目前的技术回收。常规开采技术包括露天开采和热水开采，以及现场开采沥青，如循环蒸汽模拟和蒸汽辅助重力排水(SAGD)。尽管这些工艺正在商业上使用，但从油砂中广泛开采和提取沥青**使环境变得更加脆弱，包括大量的用水量、土地干扰、尾矿库足迹和温室气体排放。在这些问题中，尾矿处理近年来引起了越来越多的关注。有必要进行更多的研究，以开发更可持续和环境可行的技术，从油砂矿藏中回收沥青。3P**科技公司已经开发出一种分离沥青、粘土水和沙子的方法，方法是**使用30摄氏度的调制电力，而不需要向**材料添加任何化学物质、热量和搅拌。这被称为脉冲等离子体工艺，以下称为3P。经过3P处理后，**沥青以泡沫形式漂浮到容器的顶部，粘土-水作为中间层留在**砂层之上。回收的沥青具有与传统沥青相当的性能。然而，**提出的技术还处于早期阶段，需要更多的系统研究来推动**技术在该领域的发展。该项目的目标是确定由于3P的脉冲等离子体过程而在沥青中发生的化学变化。不同的分析技术，如~1H核磁共振、~(13)C核磁共振、傅里叶变换红外光谱仪、元素分析仪、密度计、折射仪、电子自旋共振光谱仪将被用来研究化学变化。********

Canada has approximately 2400 billion barrels of bitumen that is considered as the world's largest **oilsands deposits. Approximately 5 billion barrels of bitumen were already recovered and **approximately 174 billion barrels of bitumen are recoverable by using current technology. The **conventional technology includes surface mining and hot water extraction and in-situ bitumen **extraction such as cyclic steam simulation and steam assisted gravity drainage (SAGD). Although **these processes are using commercially, the extensive mining and extraction of bitumen from oil **sands has made the environment more vulnerable including a large amount of water consumption, land disturbance, tailings ponds footprint and green-house gas emissions. Tailings treatment has caused increasing concern in recent years among these issues. More research is necessary to develop more sustainable and environmentally viable technology to recover bitumen from oilsands deposits. 3P **Technology Corporation has developed a process to separate the bitumen, clay-water and sands by **using modulated electricity at 30 Celsius without adding any chemicals, heat and agitation to the **material. This is called the pulse plasma process, hereafter called 3P. Following 3P treatment, **the bitumen floats to the top of the vessel as foam, clay-water stay as a middle layer, above the **sand layer. The bitumen recovered has comparable properties to the conventional bitumen. However, **the propose technology is in the early stage and it requires more systematic study to advance the **technology in the field. The goal of this project is to determine chemical changes occur in the **bitumen because of the 3P's pulse plasma process. Different analytical techniques such as 1H NMR **(proton nuclear magnetic resonance) spectrometer, 13C NMR (carbon NMR), FTIR (Fourier transform **infrared spectrometer, elemental analyser, density meter, refractometer, ESR (electron spin **resonance) spectrometer will be used to investigate the chemical changes. ********