Al-PAM assisted filtration of mature fine tailings from oil sands developments
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Abstract
Oil sands industry, with the collaboration of its research partners, has been striving to come up with cost effective and environmentally friendly technology for de-watering of mature fine tailings (MFT). Overall objective of present study was to determine the optimum dosage of suitable polymer and process conditions that could expedite the densification of MFT. The effect of residual bitumen removal from oil sands tailings, MFT dilution and manoeuvring the polymer addition mechanism were also investigated. A novel approach of filtering the sediments was used to achieve a maximum level of consolidation with a better recovery of useable water. In this study, Al-PAM was identified to be a better flocculating agent than commercial Magnafloc1011 as filtration aid for diluted MFT. This class of polymer is expected to offer more viable approach for MFT disposal with a potential of putting an end to massive tailings ponds.