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US 9,039,893 B2Granted
Process for the extraction of hydrocarbons from oil sands and oil shale
AssigneeENI S.p.A.
InventorsAlberto Delbianco, Giambattista De Ghetto
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Abstract
Process for the extraction of hydrocarbons contained in oil sands and oil shale comprising feeding said oil sands or oil shale to a suitable apparatus in which they are heated, directly and/or by means of a suitable vector fluid, making use of solar energy collected by means of optical concentration systems.
Claims11
A process for extracting hydrocarbons contained in oil sand, the process comprising:
- feeding an oil sand into a heating apparatus;
- and
- heating the oil sand within the heating apparatus, wherein the heating apparatus comprises an extraction column,
- wherein energy for the heating is provided directly, indirectly through a vector fluid, or both, from solar energy collected by at least one optical concentration system to form a hot vector fluid;
- wherein the hot vector fluid acts an extracting fluid;
- and
- wherein said extracting fluid is in a supercritical phase and the extraction can be effected by modifying the temperature and pressure conditions to achieve subcritical conditions.
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Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.