OIL SANDS TAILINGS MANAGEMENT
Number of patents in Portfolio can not be more than 2000
United States of America Patent
Stats
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N/A
Issued Date -
Oct 4, 2012
app pub date -
Apr 4, 2011
filing date -
Apr 4, 2011
priority date (Note) -
Abandoned
status (Latency Note)
Importance
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US Family Size
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Abstract
A system and method for managing fluid mature fine tailings (MFT) containment volume in a tailings pond to a minimum, fixed steady-state volume by balancing the accumulation of the MFT in the pond with consumption of the MFT from the pond by one or both of spiking the MFT into coarse sand tailings forming a coarse sand beach with trapped fines which is segregating for forming a trafficable deposit or centrifuging MFT from the tailings pond and depositing the resulting centrifuge cake on the coarse sand beach. During the life of the oil sand operation, when the volume of MFT approaches the fixed volume of the tailings pond, MFT is consumed from the pond using both sand-spiking and centrifugation as required. Production of MFT in the pond is also reduced by diverting an underflow from a secondary flotation cell in an extraction plant from the tailings pond to a thickener where the fines-rich thickened tailings from the thickener are beached for subsequent dewatering and reclamation.
First Claim
Other Claims data not available