Patent ID: 8679325

Claim:
A method for separating asphaltenes from other hydrocarbons to be recovered from a bitumen froth, comprising: providing a bitumen froth comprising bitumen, asphaltenes, inorganic solids and water; forming a mixture comprising the bitumen froth and a paraffinic hydrocarbon solvent so as to precipitate asphaltenes in the mixture; separating the mixture into a dilute bitumen product and a residue, wherein the dilute bitumen product comprises bitumen and paraffinic hydrocarbon solvent and has a lower concentration of precipitated asphaltenes, inorganic solids and water than the mixture and the residue comprises the remaining components; recovering between greater than 0% and about 95% of the paraffinic hydrocarbon solvent present in the residue in a tailings solvent recovery unit that produces a tailings stream comprising water, inorganic solids, precipitated asphaltenes and non-recovered paraffinic hydrocarbon solvent, and a recycle solvent; contacting the tailings stream with gas bubbles in a floatation process to separate the tailings stream into an asphaltenes rich froth and an asphaltene depleted aqueous phase, wherein the floatation process includes contacting the tailings stream with a reagent selected from the group consisting of frother reagents and collector reagents; and recovering from the asphaltenes rich froth an asphaltenes concentrate consisting of between 70 and 90 percent asphaltenes.