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IJESD 2013 Vol.4(4): 351-354 ISSN: 2010-0264
DOI: 10.7763/IJESD.2013.V4.369

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

E. V. Lau, K. L. Foo, and P. E. Poh

Abstract—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 50oC 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.

Index Terms—Beach remediation, flotation, oil spill, pH, temperature.

E. V. Lau and P. E. Poh are with the Mechanical Department, School of Engineering, Monash University Sunway Campus, Jalan Lagoon Selatan,46150 Bandar Sunway, Selangor DarulEhsan, Malaysia (e-mail: lau.ee.von@monash.edu, poh.phaik.eong@monash.edu).
K. L. Foo was with the Mechanical Department, School of Engineering, Monash University Sunway Campus, Jalan Lagoon Selatan, 46150 Bandar Sunway, Selangor DarulEhsan, Malaysia.

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Cite:, "," International Journal of Environmental Science and Development vol. 4, no. 3, pp. 351-354, 2013.

General Information

  • ISSN: 2010-0264 (Print); 2972-3698 (Online)
  • Abbreviated Title: Int. J. Environ. Sci. Dev.
  • Frequency: Bimonthly
  • DOI: 10.18178/IJESD
  • Editor-in-Chief: Prof. Richard Haynes
  • Managing Editor: Ms. Cherry L. Chen
  • Indexing: Scopus (CiteScore 2022: 1.4), Google Scholar, CNKI, ProQuest, EBSCO, etc. 
  • E-mail: ijesd@ejournal.net

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