Bitumen extraction from Asbuton using hot water process with Na₂Co₃ as a sealing agent

Bitumen from Asbuton can be used as an alternative of oil or bituminous materials. This paper presents results connected with determination of the parameters of the water process of bitumen recovery. They include the process temperature, the concentration of sodium dodecyl benzene sulfonate (SDBS) as a surfactant and that of Na2CO3 as a sealing agent. The experiments carried out show that the recovery of bitumen increases with increase of the temperature and the concentration of Na₂CO₃. It increases with increase of the concentration of SDBS up to 0.375%. The recovery of bitumen decreases with further increasing SDBS concentration from 0.375% to 0.5%. The highest percentage of recovery amounting to 91.92 % is obtained at 90oC in presence of 1 % of Na2CO3 and 0.375 % of SDBS. An optimization using the response surface methodology (RSM) was also carried out. The predicted optimal bitumen recovery condition refers to 1 % concentration of Na₂CO₃, 0.385 % concentration of SDBS and a digesting temperature of 89.99°C. These parameters values provide an optimal percentage of bitumen recovery of 89.78 %. The process temperature and Na₂CO₃ concentration are the significant terms of the model. The analysis of the variance (ANOVA) indicates that the model is significant as evidenced by R² value of 0.9589 and the model F value of 18.13. The percentage recovery of bitumen envisaged by the model is close to the value determined experimentally (80.683 % and 80.6825 %, respectively). This provides the conclusion that the model can be used for predicting the percentage of bitumen recovery from Asbuton using the hot water process method.