The oil sands industry is producing large volumes of tailings waste reaching 2 billion cubic meters by 2034 In this study, the industrial standard flocculant, high molecular weight PAM, was grafted from the surface of activated carbon (AC). This material was designed to increase the flocculant's hydrophobicity and density. Different molecular weight PAM was grafted from AC with different AC contents and particle sizes (AC-PAMs). The AC-PAMs were synthesized by surface-initiated atom transfer radical polymerization (SI-ATRP). The AC-PAMs achieved molecular weights 107 – 5,600 kg/mol and AC content of 0.2 – 5.8% on <0.1 and 0.1 – 0.5 mm AC particle diameters. AC-PAM achieved higher solids contents up to 51 wt% using AC-PAM with 5.1 wt% AC due to the grafting from a hydrophobic AC core. To summarize, our work shows the successful grafting of PAM from AC and its potential as a flocculant for mature fine tailings.
Author Keywords: activate carbon, atom transfer radical polymization, flocculation, grafting-from, polyacrylamide, surface-initiated polymerization