| Résumé | Canadian Natural Resources Limited (CNRL) has determined that the extraction rate of bitumen from oil sands could be improved if the chemical composition of the water used in the froth flotation process could be monitored online. In addition, the measurements would help increase the recycled fraction of process water and reduce fresh water consumption. Therefore, the goal of this project is to measure the Na, Ca, Mg, and K concentration in process water. The measurement technology that was selected is laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy (LIBS). Currently, CNRL plans to install a filtering system that will extract water from the line and remove all traces of bitumen and solid particles. Consequently, a first goal of this project is to measure the concentration of the four elements in clear filtered water. However, the filter may not work adequately and there could be other locations where it would be desirable to measure the concentration of these elements in water. So this project addresses also the objective of measuring poorly filtered or unfiltered process water. The effects of different types of particles are considered. The concentration of the four elements of interest was measured in various systems: simulated process water, real process water, de-ionized water containing NaCl in solution and spinel particles in suspension. These experiments, the LIBS technology, the results obtained, and the conclusions that were drawn are detailed in this report. |
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