|  | Areas of interest
> Environment
- Remediation of soil impacted by recalcitrant petroleum hydrocarbons, salts (mostly NaCl) or both, to as close to pristine conditions as possible.
- Improved delineation of soil impacted by petroleum hydrocarbons, salts or both.
- Enhancements in SOx, NOx reduction technologies
> In-situ bitumen recovery
- Bitumen-hydrocarbon phase behaviours with temperature and pressure variation (13 to > 200°C)
- Formation of hydrates upon depressurization of C2-C3-C1-bitumen-HC mixtures
- Miscible and partially miscible finger modeling (using macroscopic parameters)
- Mass transfer in solvent finger/bitumen matrix networks (diffusion and dispersion)
- Modeling of heat and diffusion boundary layers in steam-thermal-solvent processes
- Improvements in multiphase pumps, novel water softening, water hardness analyzers, waste heat utilization, external heat source engines, abrasion resistant materials
> Surface Facilities
- Abrasion and erosion-corrosion resistant materials
- Tailings stabilization methods
- Solvent extraction of bitumen
- Enhanced membrane technology for produced water treating (deoiling, or desalting, or softening)
> Analytical Techniques for petroleum products
- In-use online analysis of petroleum products
- Failure modes of in-service petroleum products
- Failure modes of industrial components that are lubricated with petroleum products
- Forensic analysis of lubricants and related industrial equipment
- Analytical techniques for new and used lubricants
> Refinery products, processes and facilities
- Novel approaches for the removal of sulphur, phosphorous and nitrogen from hydrocarbon streams
- Improved understanding of fouling and corrosion of process equipment both hydrocarbon and inorganic, and means to mitigate same
- Novel approaches for quality enhancements for fuel products, oxygenate containing fuel products, and asphalts
- Improvements in yields, energy efficiency, run lengths, and molecular composition of product streams in refinery processing equipment
- Improved production of basestocks from crudes
- Enhanced process control system -- modeling of refinery systems (improved molecular characterization, reaction kinetics, hydrodynamic modeling)
> Chemicals
- Improvements related to polyethylene manufacturing
- Improvements related to polyethylene products particularly polyethylene for injection and rotational molding applications
- Some potential areas include:
- Investigate the effect of different bio sources in biofuels (gas and diesel) on polyethylene physical properties
- Investigate and improve the organoleptic properties of polyethylene
- Investigate methods to improve the barrier properties of rotational and injection molded parts
- Explore applications of polyethylene combined with bio-based materials
- Investigate methods to evaluate and improve the Environmental Stress Crack Resistance performance of polyethylene
- Improvements related to ethane/propane gas cracking to produce ethylene
- Improvements related to manufacturing of vinyl intermediates, aromatics and naphtha based solvents
> Geoscience
- Diagenetic history, cementation, clay formation, burial history and petrographic studies of the McMurray Fm to determine the variation in ore quality
- Emplacement variability and degradation of Northern Alberta bitumen using novel approaches
- Resolve the stratigraphy and sedimentology of Post Cretaceous sediments in the Athabasca region
- Applications of remote sensing to mine development
- Investigation of mud sedimentation in shallow water clastic depositional environments
- Modeling of oil migration pathways through the Palaeozoic sediments of the Athabasca basin
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