Online Monitoring of Bitumen Content in Oil Sands Using Differential Light Radar

利用差分光雷达在线监测油砂中的沥青含量

• 批准号: 531958-2018
• 负责人: Chou, KengChang
• 金额: $ 2.37万
• 依托单位: University of British Columbia
• 依托单位国家: 加拿大
• 项目类别: Collaborative Research and Development Grants
• 财政年份: 2020
• 资助国家: 加拿大
• 起止时间: 2020-01-01 至 2021-12-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nserc-crsng.gc.ca/ase-oro/Details-Detailles_eng.asp?id=698145
• 关键词: Online; Monitoring; Bitumen; Content; Oil

Crude oil exports from Canada has exceeded 3.3 Million Barrels per Day, which represents a value of $66.86 billion in 2017. A challenge for Canadian oil industry is that it is inherently costly to extract bitumen from oil sands. Further cost reduction will make Canadian oil industry more competitive and reduce its environmental impact. The current water-based oil sands extraction process consists of multiple steps requiring continuous parameter adjustment. Because of a lack of effective on-line monitoring tools, the adjustment relies on the experience of the operators, which often is not optimal and introduces unnecessary consumption of resources. Therefore, developing reliable on-line methods to monitor the process streams is important for improving the process control in bitumen extraction plants. The proposal aims to investigate applications of light radar (LiDAR) in oil sands extraction processes to provide online quantitative analysis of bitumen content in oil sands. LiDAR illuminates a target with laser beams and analyze various types of backscattered signals to measure sample properties. The results can be used to optimize the bitumen extraction process, reduce the environmental impact, and enhance the competitiveness of Canadian petroleum industry.

2017年，加拿大原油出口量超过330万桶/天，价值668.6亿美元。加拿大石油工业面临的一个挑战是，从油砂中提取沥青的成本很高。进一步降低成本将使加拿大石油行业更具竞争力，并减少对环境的影响。目前的水基油砂开采过程包括多个步骤，需要不断调整参数。由于缺乏有效的在线监测工具，调整依赖于操作人员的经验，这往往不是最佳的，并引入了不必要的资源消耗。因此，开发可靠的在线监测方法对改善沥青萃取厂的过程控制具有重要意义。该提案旨在研究光雷达（LiDAR）在油砂开采过程中的应用，为油砂中沥青含量提供在线定量分析。激光雷达用激光束照射目标，并分析各种类型的后向散射信号来测量样品的特性。研究结果可用于优化沥青提取工艺，减少对环境的影响，提高加拿大石油工业的竞争力。