Hydrocarbon liquids, clays

Clays in Hydrocarbon Liquids ( Nonpenetrating Liquids ). When the dry clays are immersed in dry hydrocarbon liquids, the basal spacing of the clay is... 

Clays in Water (Penetrating Liquid). The apparent densities of the expanding clays in water are higher than those of the same clays in hydrocarbon liquids. For example, the apparent density of sodium Wyoming bentonite in water is 2.793 grams per cc. (four determinations, standard deviation 0.008 gram per cc.). 

The oil sands from the Athabasca deposits are a mixture of sand grains, water, and high-viscosity crude hydrocarbon called bitumen. At room temperature, bitumen is a semisolid, but will convert to a viscous liquid at about 300°F (149°C). Sand grains are about 0.075 to 0.25 mm in diameter with small amounts of attached clay. The grains are all in direct contact and wet with a thin continuous sheetlike layer of water. Bitumen fills the void between the wetted sand grains and forms a continuous phase through the pores. Bitumen is about 17% to 18% of the mass. The composition of Athabasca oil sand bitumen is provided in TABLE 12-6. 

The conversion of syngas to liquid and gaseous products is shown in Table 1. Catalyst (A) shows the maximum conversion but the yield of C5+ is lower than that observed for catalysts (B) (C). Catalyst (C) shows less tendency for formation of olefins (i.e.lower ratio of C"2-C"4/Ci-C4) with maximum C5+ hydrocarbons, whereas with clay additive, catalyst (B) although the yield of C5+ is the same as that of catalyst (C), high wax... 

Fernandez, F. Quigley R. M. 1985. Hydraulic conductivity of natural clays permeated with simple liquid hydrocarbons. Can. Geotech. J. 22 pp. 205-214. 

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