Grant: CCI Applied Research and Development Grants

For the sustainability of Canada’s oil sands, a strategic national resource, the development and commercialization of new technologies play an important role in economic growth and energy security. Industry operators currently rely on manual sampling and laboratory analysis for monitoring the composition of oil sands process streams, which contain bitumen, water, minerals solids, and clays. This is not only time-consuming and poses safety hazards, but also prevents timely and informed decisions for process optimizations. The Northern Alberta Institute of Technology’s (NAIT) Technology Access Centre for Energy and Environmental Sustainability (TACEES) and Imperial Oil Ltd. (IOL) propose the development of a novel flow-through nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) system to enable the continuous, real-time compositional measurement of various oil sands process and tailings streams. Currently non-existent in field operations, real-time NMR has the potential to revolutionize instrumentation and process optimization in oil sands extraction. Laboratory-based low-field NMR relaxometry has been demonstrated to quantify hydrocarbons (e.g. bitumen) and water. In this study, we will determine the fundamentals and factors affecting low-field NMR (e.g. clay-bound water, temperature, flow rate, density, bitumen fouling) in laboratory and simulated operational environments. Flow-through NMR technology will be developed with a focus on the accurate and repeatable measurements of bitumen, water, clay bound water, clay activity in oil sands process and tailings streams. Knowledge and learnings gained from this project will guide the next phase of a field-ready system for field piloting and commercialization. Real-time NMR innovation for oil sands characterization will enable industry operators to proactively detect and address performance issues, optimize operational efficiency, and enable immediate data collection to track pipeline performance levels during oil sands extraction. Flow-through NMR technology has the potential to significantly improve industry sustainability by minimizing bitumen losses to tailings, improving the bitumen recovery and optimizing energy usage through optimizing extraction processes. This project will benefit the Canadian oil sands industry significantly by enhancing operational control through instrumentation, reducing manual sampling, advancing user safety, and contributing to the overall environmental sustainability of the industry.