Dambrowitz, Christopher (Northern Alberta Institute of Technology)

Purpose

Titanium Corporation Inc. (Calgary, AB) is developing a "Creating Value from WasteTM" technology to recover heavy minerals, primarily zircon, and bitumen from froth flotation oil sands tailings. In addition, the company is developing and building a commercial process to recover bitumen contained in the fluid fine tailings (FFT) accumulated from oil sands mining operations. This integrated approach to recover minerals and bitumen will potentially provide a source of revenue and offers tailings reclamation benefits. In this proposal, the Northern Alberta Institute of Technology's (NAIT's) Centre for Oil Sands Sustainability (COSS) aims to optimize and validate Titanium's novel tailings solvent extraction technology to remove residual bitumen from FFT provided by Canada's Oil Sands Innovation Alliance (COSIA) and evaluate the treated FFT for improved consolidation and settling properties. COSS collaborates with small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) to validate and optimize innovative technologies that could enhance the environmental and economic performance of Canada's oil sands. This project will speed up the validation and subsequent commercialization of Titanium Corp's technology for treating oil sands tailings for faster consolidation.