Extraction of bitumen from Utah tar sands by a hot water digestion-flotation technique

Conference · Sun Jan 01 04:00:00 EST 1978 · Soc. Pet. Eng. AIME, Pap.; (United States)

OSTI ID:6613914

Sepulveda, J E; Miller, J D

Tar sand deposits in the State of Utah contain more than 25 billion bbl of in-place bitumen. Although 30 times smaller than the well-known Athabasca tar sands, Utah tar sands do represent a significant domestic energy resource comparable to the national crude oil reserves (31.3 billion bbl). The term tar sand refers to a consolidated mixture of bitumen and sand. Based upon a detailed analysis of the physical and chemical properties of both the bitumen and the sand, a hot-water extraction process for Utah tar sands currently is being developed at the University of Utah. This process involves intense agitation of the tar sand in a hot caustic solution and subsequent separation of the bitumen by a modified froth flotation technique. Experimental results indicated that, for a given tar sand sample, percent solids and caustic concentration were the 2 most important variables controlling the performance of the digestion stage. (28 refs.)

• Research Organization: Utah Univ
• OSTI ID: 6613914
• Report Number(s): CONF-780213-
• Conference Information: Journal Name: Soc. Pet. Eng. AIME, Pap.; (United States) Journal Volume: 78-B-1
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

04 OIL SHALES AND TAR SANDS
040402* -- Oil Shales & Tar Sands-- Surface Methods
ADDITIVES
BASES
BENCH-SCALE EXPERIMENTS
BITUMENS
BITUMINOUS MATERIALS
CARBONACEOUS MATERIALS
ENERGY SOURCES
FEDERAL REGION VIII
FLUID INJECTION PROCESSES
FOSSIL FUELS
FUELS
GEOLOGIC DEPOSITS
HOT-WATER PROCESSES
MATERIALS
NORTH AMERICA
OIL SAND DEPOSITS
OIL SANDS
ORGANIC COMPOUNDS
OTHER ORGANIC COMPOUNDS
RECOVERY
RESERVES
RESOURCES
SEPARATION PROCESSES
TAR
USA
UTAH