Characterization of heavy minerals in the Athabasca oil sands

Heavy minerals such as zircon, rutile, and ilmenite, have been observed to concentrate in the froth during the extraction of bitumen from oil sands. Consequently, the waste solids from this process are a rich source of both zirconium and titanium. While most of the zircon occurs as discrete particles, attempts at generating a high end concentrate of rutile have met with limited success. Thus, there is a need for further characterization of heavy minerals in oil sands. This work uses X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), thermogravimetric (TG) analysis, and X-ray fluorescence to analyze the coarse froth solids from an oil sands ore sample. XRD results reveal that the titanium bearing minerals present in the froth are rutile, anatase, brookite, and ilmenite. SEM results indicate the presence of quartz, intergrown with fine titanium-rich and iron-rich structures. Also present are a large variety of iron–titanium compounds, with iron compositions ranging from a few percent to stoichiometric ilmenite.