Grant: Canada Excellence Research Chairs

While Canada?s oil sands industry is known for the very large scale of its operations, it is the very small-scale processes operating at the scale of nanometers (one nanometer is 1/1,000,000,000 of a meter) that actually determine the success of bitumen extraction, upgrading and reclamation of tailings. The complex interplay of forces between the fluids (water and bitumen) and the solid particles (sand and clay) controls the recovery of bitumen from oil sand, the subsequent removal of water from the tailings, and the overall energy efficiency of oil sand processing. However, the nanoscale structure-property relations, reactivity, and transport properties of the interfaces are not well understood. Breakthroughs in measuring the composition and forces at these interfaces are needed to enable new processing technology to reduce water use, remediate tailings, and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Key questions to be addressed are: ? What are the chemical and physical structure and dynamics of the solid?liquid interfaces and their temporal and spatial dependence? ? How does the interfacial region influence chemical and physical properties of the oil sands? ? To what extent is it possible to extrinsically control the behavior of interfaces to improve oil sands processing? Work to date at the University of Alberta has made great progress in answering these questions, but better information is needed on the chemistry of the molecules at the interface and the physics of how they interact at the nanoscale. The instrumentation developed by the CERC will include: ? Standoff photoacoustic spectroscopy to sense molecules on surfaces at a distance ? Surface and subsurface imaging chemical recognition microscopy to define chemical composition ? MEMS (micro-electromechanical systems)-based physical and chemical sensors to measure the properties of oil sands streams. These tools will be used to investigate the response of the interfaces in the oil sands to electric and chemical gradients, temperature, pressure, ion concentration, and mechanical forces. The candidate for the CERC in Oil Sands Molecular Engineering, Dr. Thomas Thundat, is famous for his studies of molecules and nanoscale structures at interfaces. He has established himself as a world leader in the development of new techniques for detecting molecules on surfaces, even in trace quantities, and in the development of new sensors that have tremendous potential application to oil sands processing.