Grants and Contributions:

Grant or contribution awarded and spanning more than one fiscal year.

The Project will conduct research that would further develop the feasibility of the proprietary dewatering process and technology (composed of only pipes, pumps, and control valves to dewater oil sands tailings) from the laboratory scale to the pilot plant. From the design and fabrication of laboratory test loop, it will measure energy consumption, pumping characteristics, and dewatering rates of pipeline for various tailings streams at different operational and environmental conditions. The dewatering process being developed is anticipated to sigificantly reduce a) water and energy use via the immediate recycle of heated extraction water, b) air/ greenhouse gas emissions from tailings ponds, and c) the volume of tailings produced and deposited from current industry methods.