水基提取技术用于油砂分离的研究进展

Research progress in water-based bitumen extraction from oil sands

油砂作为一种重要的非常规油气资源,其分离技术的研究近些年来引起了国内科研工作人员的重视。介绍了目前世界上最重要的油砂分离技术——水基提取技术的基本原理及影响油砂分离的重要影响因素,阐述了油砂结构、特性与水基提取分离的重要关系及分离条件对沥青回收率的重要影响作用,同时探讨了原子力显微镜用于油砂水基分离过程中相关微观机理研究的重要应用,最后对水基提取技术用于油砂工业生产的流程进行了简单介绍。

As an unconventional oil resource,oil sands and its processing technology has attracted much attention in China in recent years.Water-based extraction processes are the most important method to recover bitumen from oil sands.Two key steps are involved in this process：bitumen liberation from the sand grains and bitumen aeration followed by flotation to form a bitumen-rich froth.Any factor that causes poor liberation or poor aeration will result in a poor bitumen recovery.With the use of the advanced analytical instrumentations,such as the atomic force microscope（AFM）,the understanding for the bitumen extraction from oil sands is extended from the macroscopic scale to the molecular level.It is found that the wettability of solids and water chemistry play significant roles in the processability of oil sands.Mechanisms related to the bitumen extraction processes are discussed in detail.The procedures of recovering bitumen from oil sands in industry are also briefly described.