| Abstract | The Athabasca oil sands deposit in Alberta contains ~5 Χ 10⁹ m³ of bitumen accessible by surface mining. During bitumen separation from the mined ore, ultra-fine (<300 nm) aluminosilicate clays only a few layers thick (U/F) are mobilized and become dispersed in the process water. In this water containing dissolved salts from natural deposits, U/F are capable of forming thixotropic gels. The consequence of this is the production of large volumes of mature fine tailings (MFT) with a high water holding capacity. For mine planning purposes, the objective of predicting and possibly mitigating MFT formation requires an understanding of the colloidal behaviour of U/F particles in salt solutions. In this work, photon correlation spectroscopy and the deuterium NMR method are used to provide an insight into the U/F floc formation process. These results are correlated with conventional analysis of settling data. |
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