Syncrude Canada Ltd.

Bruker Corporation

National Research Council of Canada

Richard Paproski

Mohamad Sabsabi

Alain Blouin

Josette El Haddad

Aïssa Harhira

Barry Bara

Darcy Daugela

Hesham Kamar

Supriyo Ghosh

Peter Krygsman

Barjinder Bhalla

David Duford

Nathaniel Dirk Flim

Aissa Harhira

A method of quantifying at least one property of interest of an oil sands ore sample is provided using a laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy (LIBS) method. The property of interest may include bitumen content, water content, particle size information, cation exchange capacity, methylene blue index, mineralogical content (e.g., quartz, total clay, and clay components), amorphous material content, total ash content, and connate water parameter (e.g., conductivity, chloride content, or alkalinity).

Laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy for determining a property of an oil sands ore sample

A method for determining the solids content, fines content and/or particle size distribution of the solids in an oil sands process stream test sample comprising bitumen, solids and water using low-field time-domain NMR is provided which involves building a non-solids partial least squares calibration model using oil sands process streams calibration samples having a known bitumen content, solids content, water content, fines content and/or particle size distribution by subjecting the calibration samples to a first T-weighted Tmeasurement NMR pulse sequence that maximizes very fast relaxing signals and a second T-weighted Tmeasurement NMR pulse sequence that maximizes slow relaxing signals. The measurement of other sample properties strongly correlated with surface area, such as methylene blue index, can also be measured using a partial least squares calibration model.

Low-field time-domain NMR measurement of oil sands process streams

A method of quantifying at least one property of interest of an oil sands ore sample is provided using a laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy (LIBS) method. The LIBS method may be applied to oil sands ore being conveyed prior to a slurry process to measure oil sand composition and provide information which may predict extraction characteristics. The LIBS method may be applied to oil sands core samples in a laboratory setting to reduce the cost and analysis time associated with conventional laboratory measurement techniques.

Laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy of oil sands

A method for quantifying bitumen and/or water in a sample comprising bitumen, water and solids using a time-domain nuclear magnetic resonance pulse spectrometer is provided comprising the steps of: initially saturating the magnetization of the sample so that essentially no magnetization remains in the +Z axis; subjecting the sample to a sequence of radio-frequency pulses optimized for the measurement of bitumen and water in the sample; allowing the recording of the transverse relaxation (T) echo trains after incremental longitudinal relaxation to produce a raw TD-NMR data set for the sample; and determining the amount of bitumen and water by means of a partial least squares optimization based chemometric model relating TD-NMR data sets obtained from a training set of samples comprising bitumen, water and solids to the training samples' corresponding reference values obtained from a standard analysis method for determining bitumen and water.

Simultaneous determination of bitumen and water content in oil sand and oil sand extraction process samples using low-field time-domain NMR

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Edmonton, Canada

Richard Paproski