Patent ID: 8226820

Claim:
A method for handling tar sands and extracting bitumen or oil from said tar sands, which method comprises: depositing tar sands into a hopper assembly with a first input auger; contacting an organic solvent liquid mixture with said tar sands in said hopper assembly; dissolving said oil or bitumen in said tar sands with said organic solvent liquid mixture; allowing sand from said tar sands to separate and fall toward a bottom of said hopper assembly to form a slurry of separated sand and liquid; transporting said slurry from said hopper assembly to a top of a rinse chamber, said rinse chamber having a cylindrical body and an open bottom enclosed by a first conical tray having a diameter larger than said cylindrical body; delivering said slurry into a top of said rinse chamber tangentially to cause cyclonic action of the slurry in said rinsing chamber to separate said sands from said liquid; drawing and removing said solvent and said oil or bitumen mixture from said rinse chamber; maintaining a continuous and common level of liquid in said hopper assembly, in said first conical tray of said rinse chamber and in an excess solvent chamber; maintaining less than atmospheric pressure in said rinse chamber by a siphon chamber initiated by a gas pump; drawing said solvent and said oil/bitumen mixture to a separator to separate said oil/bitumen from said solvent; and returning said solvent to said hopper assembly for reuse to form a closed loop process, wherein said solvent is heated in a heat exchanger prior to said step of contacting with tar sands in said hopper assembly.