Innovation Anthology #173: Senior Research Engineer

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When Syncrude Canada processes bitumen to produce synthetic oil, one by-product is black coke.

According to Syncrude scientist Clara Qualizza, this coke is essentially pure carbon. It’s a potential energy source and must stay on-site.

CLARA QUALIZZA: And so we need to store it in such a way that if technology were developed to utilize it efficiently as an energy resource, and in a clean manner, that it could be used again in the future. And so we store it in the landscape.

Syncrude is experimenting with coke as fill material in reconstructing watersheds after mining oil sands. But as Clara Qualizza explains, coke requires special consideration.

CLARA QUALIZZA: So you could think of coke more as a coarser sand, although its quite perfectly round little sand particles. And so water moves through it very quickly. And so it’s quite a dry material. So we need to put a soil cover on it can hold enough moisture to keep the forest going. We don’t really rely on the coke for moisture.

Coke contains sulphur. And while not considered a major issue, instruments imbedded in the reconstructed landscape monitor for any leaching.

Thanks today to Syncrude Canada.

I’M CHERYL CROUCHER

Guest

Chris Apps,

C-FER Technologies, Alberta Innovates, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada,

Sponsor

Syncrude

Program Date: 2008-10-07