Improvement on existing tailings management technologies is pivotal for the sustainability of oil sands industry. Long term storage of oil sands tailings in tailing ponds is considered a serious environmental liability. Oil sands industry, with the collaboration of its research partners, has been striving to come up with cost effective and environmentally friendly technology to resolve mature fine tailings (MFT) issues.

Present research study explores a possibility to consolidate current and future inventory of MFT by using polymer aids as flocculants. Overall objective of this research is to expedite the densification of MFT by manipulating the consolidation process and using the optimum dosage of suitable polymers. The effect of residual bitumen removal from oil sands tailings, MFT dilution and manoeuvring the polymer addition mechanism are also investigated.

A novel approach of filtering the sediments is proposed and tested to achieve a maximum level of consolidation with a better recovery of useable water.

In this study, Al-PAM is identified to be a better flocculating agent than commercial Magnafloc1011 as filtration aid of diluted MFT. This class of polymer is expected to offer more viable approach for MFT disposal with a potential of putting an end to massive tailings ponds.