Innovation Anthology #152: Co-Founder
The Alberta oil sands produce over a million barrels a day. But scientists still don’t have a complete understanding of the basic chemistry of bitumen.
That’s why Dr. Murray Gray and his colleagues at the Imperial Oil-Alberta Ingenuity Centre for Oil Sands Innovation are developing synthetic bitumen molecules. They’re hoping comparative computer analysis will help them understand these complex oil sands molecules.
DR. MURRAY GRAY: So these molecules have been through a complex geological process starting with organic material from a marine environment. It’s been baked and processed through geological time. And then it has migrated and been biodegraded in the case of Athabasca oil sands. So the resulting chemical mixture is much more complex than the original biological starting point. So understanding in some ways the human genome is easy, when comparing some of the details of this extraordinarily complex geological material.
Oil sands scientists are still divided over the chemical structure of the bitumen molecules. Dr. Gray believes the development of the synthetic ones will help settle this and lead to completely different technologies for extracting oil from the oil sands.
Thanks today to Alberta Ingenuity
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I’M CHERYL CROUCHER
Guest
Debra Humphries,
Dakota Supplies Inc, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada,
Sponsor
Alberta Ingenuity
Established in 2000, the Alberta Ingenuity Fund supports science and engineering research of the highest calibre, to create a prosperous future for the province of Alberta. It draws funding from a $1 billion endowment established in 2000 and managed by the Government of Alberta to build the capacity for innovation, especially in areas with long lasting social and economic impact.
Among its many programs, Alberta Ingenuity supports graduate students and university researchers, industrial research and commercialization partnerships, and has established several Centres and Institutes.
In January 2010, under the new Alberta Innovation Framework, Alberta Ingenuity was restructured and absorbed in the new agency Alberta Innovates Technology Solutions.
Program Date: 2008-07-17