Preparation of bitumen from oil sand by ultracentrifugation

Ultracentrifugation was investigated as a means to obtain solvent-free bitumen from oil sand. The bitumen from three oil sands of varying grades was separated by placing the sands in specially designed tubes and centrifuging for 2 h at 198 000 at 20 °C. For all grades of oil sand, approximately 70% of the bitumen was recovered. The recovered bitumen was compared to the residual remaining on the sand, and to that extracted by the conventional Soxhlet technique. The ultracentrifuged bitumen contained some emulsified water and a small amount of fine solids. The solvent-extracted material was water-free, but contained a small amount of residual solvent and fine solids. The ultracentrifuge caused some fractionation of the bitumen, resulting in a product slightly enriched in asphaltene components compared to the solvent-extracted material. The residual bitumen remaining on the sand was correspondingly slightly depleted in asphaltenes. However, as evidenced by gas Chromatographic simulated distillation data, ultracentrifugation did retain the light (180–220 °C) components of the bitumen which were lost during the solvent removal step following solvent extraction. Other analyses such as density, viscosity and elemental composition verified that ultracentrifugation resulted in some fractionation of bitumen components.