Abstract: Bitumen, floating on tailings pond water in the form of a cohesive blanket, is recovered from the surface by an apparatus that takes advantage of the cohesiveness of the bitumen. A drum with radially attached prongs is partly submerged in the water and is rotated around its longitudinal axis so that the prongs penetrate into the bitumen blanket and grip and pull it towards the drum. Upon being drawn by the prongs beneath the surface of the water, hydrostatic pressure causes the bitumen to adhere to the curved surface of the drum. During the upswing of the drum, the prongs and the adhesiveness of the metal surface of the drum hold the bitumen on the drum. A comb scraper then removes the greater portion of the bitumen, which falls into a receptacle.

Abstract: An apparatus and process are described for homogenizing and subsampling process streams such as those present in the hot water extraction process for recovery of bitumen from tar sand. Such streams contain widely variable proportions of heavy oil, water, and solids. To obtain a representative analysis-size subsample from such a stream, a bulk sample is taken into a cylindrical open-topped vessel containing a coaxial cylindrical draft tube spaced from the internal wall of the vessel. A head element closes and seals the top of the vessel. An impellor extending into the draft tube through the head element is actuated to circulate the bulk sample along an elliptical flow path within the vessel. The vessel contents are maintained in a pressurized condition by the introduction of inert gas.

Abstract: An apparatus and process are described for homogenizing and subsampling process streams such as those present in the hot water extraction process for recovery of bitumen from tar sand. Such streams contain widely variable proportions of heavy oil, water, and solids. To obtain a representative analysis-size subsample from such a stream, a bulk sample is taken into a cylindrical open-topped vessel containing a coaxial cylindrical draft tube spaced from the internal wall of the vessel. A head element closes and seals the top of the vessel. An impellor extending into the draft tube through the head element is actuated to circulate the bulk sample along an elliptical flow path within the vessel. The vessel contents are maintained in a pressurized condition by the introduction of intert gas.

Abstract: The hot water extraction process for recovering bitumen from tar sand produces a large volume of solids-laden aqueous tailings as a waste product. The solids in the tailings stream may be flocculated by the addition of time and the components of the stream then separated into a water-free solids phase and a clarified water phase. During flocculation, the zeta potential of the stream is monitored. It rises from an initial negative zeta potential, as the lime is added. Flocculation is terminated when the zeta potential is about zero. At this point, the tailings are in optimum condition for separation into the water-free solids phase and the clarified water phase. Separation is preferably effected by vacuum filtration.

Abstract: The titanium and zirconium-based minerals, present in the first stage centrifuge tailings from the hot water process for extraction of bitumen from bituminous sands, may be concentrated by a dry screening process. The tailings are burned off to provide a dry, essentially carbon-free, mineral mixture. By screening the mixture into three streams of different particle size range, silica and clays may be rejected as coarse and fine materials respectively, while titanium and zirconium minerals may be concentrated in the intermediate stream. The titanium and zirconium concentrate stream may be advanced to high tension and magnetic separation steps known in conventional processing of heavy minerals, for further beneficiation.