The Recovery of Oil from Oil/Sand Slurries in a Laboratory-Scale Flotation Cell

Oil/sand slurries are found abundantly particularly at petroleum refineries. The ability to recover oil from these oil/sand slurries is an added advantage to meet the increasing need in oil consumption. Thus, this research aims to investigate the effects of temperature and pH in the recovery of oil from oil/sand slurries using the flotation technique. The critical operating temperature and optimum pH condition are determined to be at 50 o C and pH 9 respectively, whereby the maximum average oil recovered is 63.2 wt%. Oil recovery is found to be favorable at elevated temperatures due to the reduced oil viscosity which facilitates the liberation of oil from oil sands. Under alkaline conditions, negative surface charge is increased, resulting in increased disjoining pressure between the oil and sand grains which led to the improved oil recovery. Thus, the flotation process provides a promising alternative to recover oil from oil/sand slurries.