Patents by Inventor Brian PITTENGER

Brian PITTENGER has filed for patents to protect the following inventions. This listing includes patent applications that are pending as well as patents that have already been granted by the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO).

  • Publication number: 20230037003
    Abstract: Processes for conditioning a dry tailings material from a non-aqueous extraction (NAE) process for extracting bitumen from oil sands ore are described. The process can include contacting a main stream of the dry tailings material with a re-wetted tailings seed stream to produce a combined tailings material, and subjecting the combined tailings material to re-wetting to produce a re-wetted tailings material. The re-wetting can include adding a wetting agent to the combined tailings material, and imparting mixing to the combined tailings material. Contacting the main stream of the dry tailings material with the re-wetted tailings seed stream can include recycling a portion of the re-wetted tailings material to the main stream of the dry tailings material as the re-wetted tailings seed stream to produce the combined tailings material, or subjecting a sub-stream of the dry tailings material to sub-stream re-wetting to produce the re-wetted tailings seed stream.
    Type: Application
    Filed: July 20, 2022
    Publication date: February 2, 2023
    Inventors: Michael MARR, Tracy HOLMES, Brian PITTENGER, Shawn VAN DER MERWE