%0 Journal Article
%T AN EVALUATION OF THE HOT AQUEOUS CAUSTIC LEACHING OF NIGERIAN ONDO TAR SAND
%A A. A. Adeleke
%A S. A Ibitoye
%A C. B. Oladokun
%A K. M. Oluwasegun
%J Petroleum and Coal
%D 2011
%I Slovnaft V?RUP
%X Nigeria is endowed with a large deposit of tar sand in Ondo state, the response to leaching bene-ficiation treatment has not been elaborated. In this work, samples of tar sand from Ondo state was leached with sodium hydroxide and sodium carbonate as a preliminary step and thereafter with sodium hydroxide at varying contact times and molar concentrations. The bitumen samples as-received and as-leached were also subjected to solubility tests using toluene. The results obtained showed that sodium hydroxide gave a higher percentage bitumen recovery of 48% as against 20.95% for sodium carbonate for the same leach contact time. The highest percentage recovery of bitumen of 53.50% and minimum percent bitumen loss of 1.95 was obtained at mass ratio of 1: 10 of sodium hydroxide to tar sand and 15 minutes contact time. The solubility test showed that the leached bitumen was 97.70% pure and this implies a removal of about 92.43% of mineral matter in the bitumen. The high purity of the bitumen concentrate obtained is significant as the tar sand was sourced from a shallow pit and the leaching was carried out at the less expensive normal atmospheric pressure. The results obtained thus indicate that a much higher concentration ratio may be attained for deeper and less contaminated deposits subjected to high pressure autoclave leaching.
%K tar sand
%K leaching
%K contact time
%K concentrations
%K solubility
%K bitumen.
%U http://www.vurup.sk/sites/default/files/downloads/pc_4_2011_adeleke_141_0.pdf