Apparatus and method for extraction of bitumen from oil sands

A method for extracting bitumen from an oil sand stream the method comprising at least the steps of:

• (a) providing an oil sand stream;
• (b) contacting the oil sand stream with a solvent in a first section within a rotating housing thereby obtaining a solvent-diluted oil sand slurry;
• (c) screening the solvent-diluted oil sand slurry in a second section of the rotating housing, thereby obtaining oversized material retained inside of a screen and undersized material flowing through the screen to an annular pathway between the screen and the housing;
• (d) recovering undersized material from the annular pathway;
• (e) passing oversized material to a third section of the housing;
• (f) removing solvent from the oversized material in the third section within the housing thereby obtaining solvent-depleted oversized material;
• (g) filtering the undersized material obtained in step (c), thereby obtaining a solids-depleted stream and a solids-enriched stream;
• and
• (h) removing solvent from the solids-depleted stream obtained in step (g) thereby obtaining a bitumen-enriched stream;
• wherein the first section, the second section and the third section rotate around a common rotation axis (A-A′).