Patent ID: 7341658

Claim:
A process for recovering heavy minerals from tar sands, the tar sands including bitumen and heavy materials, the process comprising: (i) contacting the tar sands with an aqueous liquid to form a bituminous froth comprising a solids fraction and a liquid fraction, the solids fraction comprising bitumen and heavy materials; (ii) adding a hydrocarbon diluent to the bituminous froth to produce a diluted bituminous froth; (iii) separating the solids fraction from the diluted bituminous froth to produce a treated solids fraction; (iv) contacting the treated solids fraction with an aqueous liquid to cause production a bituminous phase and a heavy minerals phase; and (v) separating the heavy minerals phase from the bituminous phase by means of gravity separation to form a heavy minerals fraction having a substantial portion of bitumen removed therefrom (vi) subjecting the heavy minerals fraction to attritioning to remove additional bitumen from the heavy minerals fraction.