Recycle of secondary froth in the hot water process for extracting bitumen from tar sand

Claim 1

In the hot water process for extracting bitumen from tar sand, wherein, in a conditioning zone, the tar sand is mixed with hot water and process aid and agitated to form a slurry and condition it, oversize material is removed from the slurry, the conditioned slurry is diluted with hot water and retained in a primary separation vessel under quiescent conditions to produce an overflow stream of primary froth and an underflow stream of tailings, a bitumen-depleted stream is withdrawn from the primary separation vessel and is subjected to induced air flotation to produce an overflow stream of secondary froth and an underflow stream of tailings, the improvement comprising: recycling at least part of the secondary froth to that portion of the hot water process which is downstream of the conditioning zone and upstream of the primary separation vessel to join and mix with the feed stream moving to the primary separation vessel; and thereafter retaining said feed stream in said primary separation vessel to produce primary froth.