Bitumen characterization during pulse plasma separation process**

加拿大拥有约2400亿桶沥青，被认为是世界上最大的油砂矿床。已经开采了大约50亿桶沥青，** 通过使用现有技术，可以开采大约1740亿桶沥青。传统技术包括露天开采和热水开采以及现场沥青开采，如循环蒸汽模拟和蒸汽辅助重力泄油（SAGD）。虽然这些工艺在商业上得到了应用，但从油砂中大量开采和提取沥青使环境变得更加脆弱，包括大量的水消耗、土地扰动、尾矿池足迹和温室气体排放。在这些问题中，尾矿处理是近年来日益受到关注的问题。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，从油砂矿床中回收沥青。3 P ** 技术公司开发了一种工艺，通过在30摄氏度下使用调制电力，在不向材料中添加任何化学品，热量和搅拌的情况下分离沥青，粘土水和沙子。这被称为脉冲等离子体工艺，以下称为3 P。经过3 P处理后，沥青以泡沫形式浮到容器顶部，粘土-水作为中间层留在砂层之上。 回收的沥青具有与常规沥青相当的性质。然而，所提出的技术还处于早期阶段，需要更系统的研究来推进该领域的技术。该项目的目标是确定由于3 P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 NMR **（质子核磁共振）光谱仪，13 C NMR（碳NMR），FTIR（傅里叶变换）** 红外光谱仪，元素分析仪，密度计，折射计，ESR（电子自旋 ** 共振）光谱仪将用于研究化学变化。********

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. ********