Agglomeration-flotation: recovery of hydrophobic components from oil sands fine tailings

Laboratory agglomeration-flotation tests were used to evaluate the recovery of residual bitumen from a sample of Suncor oil sands fine tailings, using ground coal as a bitumen absorbent. To improve its effectivness, the coal was preconditioned with no. 2 fuel oil, subjected to 30 s high-shear mixing and collected by flotation over 3 min. This oil-conditioned coal was then contacted with mature fine tailings for 5 min with low-shear mixing. Flotation for 5 min resulted in the recovery of 93% of the residual bitumen, compared with 85% after 40 min mixing achieved in earlier tests. Equipment to accomplish this separation has already been designed, scaled and operated for fine coal recovery from washery wastes.Peer reviewed: YesNRC publication: Ye