Partially Hydrophobic and Natural Graft Polymers for the Efficient Treatment of Mature Fine Tailings

用于有效处理成熟细尾矿的部分疏水性天然接枝聚合物

• 批准号: 543655-2019
• 负责人: Soares, Joao
• 金额: $ 2.95万
• 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: 2021
• 资助国家: 加拿大
• 起止时间: 2021-01-01 至 2022-12-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nserc-crsng.gc.ca/ase-oro/Details-Detailles_eng.asp?id=720752
• 关键词: Partially; Hydrophobic; Natural; Graft; Polymers

Today, more than 50 years after the Clark Hot Water Extraction Process was first used to extract bitumen from oil sands, the oil sands industry is still dealing with vast volumes of water trapped in tailing ponds. Tailings, a mixture of about 30% clays and 70% water are a undesired by-product of the oil sands extraction process.In July 2016, the Alberta Energy Regulator issued Directive 085 implementing the Tailings Management Framework. Directive 085 mandates that oil sands tailings must be continually treated during their project lifetime so that the land occupied by tailing ponds is ready to be reclaimed within 10 years of the end of the mine lifetime. Existing chemical (coagulants and flocculants) and mechanical (centrifugation, thin lift drying, deep deposits) methods currently used to treat tailings have limited effectiveness. Consequently, significant advances in these methods are needed to meet the land reclamation targets for the oil sands industry. Polyacrylamide flocculants are typically used to treat tailings, but their application is limited by the high viscosity of their solutions, which makes them difficult to dose and handle. Flocs generated with this technology may also break when they are pumped through pipelines from the treatment station to the deposition site. In addition, polyacrylamide retains substantial amounts of water in the treated tailings, which do not get dry enough to allow for land reclamation. The current research proposal will address the limitations of polyacrylamide flocculants using two different, yet complementary, approaches: 1) modified natural polymers, and 2) partially hydrophobic (which do not retain water in the tailing sediments) polymers. We will also combine the advantages of these two approaches in what we call hybrid polymers in this proposal.

今天，在克拉克热水提取工艺首次用于从油砂中提取沥青的50多年后，油砂行业仍在处理大量滞留在尾矿池中的水。尾矿是油砂开采过程中不受欢迎的副产品，约30%的粘土和70%的水的混合物。2016年7月，阿尔伯塔能源监管机构发布了第085号指令，实施尾矿管理框架。第085号指令规定，油砂尾矿必须在其项目生命周期内持续处理，以便尾矿池占用的土地在矿山生命周期结束后10年内准备好回收。目前用于处理尾矿的现有化学（凝结剂和絮凝剂）和机械（离心、薄提升干燥、深沉积）方法的效果有限。因此，需要这些方法的显著进步来满足油砂工业的土地复垦目标。聚丙烯酰胺絮凝剂通常用于处理尾矿，但它们的应用受到其溶液的高粘度的限制，这使得它们难以计量和处理。当通过管道从处理站泵送到沉积地点时，使用该技术产生的絮体也可能破裂。此外，聚丙烯酰胺在处理过的尾矿中保留了大量的水，这些尾矿没有足够的干燥以允许土地复垦。目前的研究建议将使用两种不同但互补的方法来解决聚丙烯酰胺絮凝剂的局限性：1）改性天然聚合物，2）部分疏水（不保留尾矿沉积物中的水）聚合物。我们还将结合这两种方法的优点，在我们所谓的杂化聚合物在这个建议联合收割机。