Karl Adolf Clark (20 October 1888,

Georgetown, Ontario Georgetown is a large unincorporated community in the town of Halton Hills, Ontario, Canada, in the Regional Municipality of Halton. The town includes several small villages or settlements such as Norval, Ontario, Norval, Limehouse, Ontario, Lime ...

– 7 December 1966,

Victoria, British Columbia Victoria is the capital city of the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian province of British Columbia, on the southern tip of Vancouver Island off Canada's Pacific Ocean, Pacific coast. The city has a population of 91,867, and the Gre ...

) was a chemist and

oil sand Oil sands are a type of unconventional oil, unconventional petroleum deposit. They are either loose sands, or partially consolidated sandstone containing a naturally occurring mixture of sand, clay, and water, soaked with bitumen (a dense and ...

researcher. He is best known for perfecting a process that uses hot water and

reagent In chemistry, a reagent ( ) or analytical reagent is a substance or compound added to a system to cause a chemical reaction, or test if one occurs. The terms ''reactant'' and ''reagent'' are often used interchangeably, but reactant specifies a ...

s to separate

bitumen Bitumen ( , ) is an immensely viscosity, viscous constituent of petroleum. Depending on its exact composition, it can be a sticky, black liquid or an apparently solid mass that behaves as a liquid over very large time scales. In American Engl ...

from

oil sands Oil sands are a type of unconventional petroleum deposit. They are either loose sands, or partially consolidated sandstone containing a naturally occurring mixture of sand, clay, and water, soaked with bitumen (a dense and extremely viscous ...

Biography

Clark earned

bachelor's A bachelor's degree (from Medieval Latin ''baccalaureus'') or baccalaureate (from Modern Latin ''baccalaureatus'') is an undergraduate degree awarded by colleges and universities upon completion of a course of study lasting three to six years ( ...

and

master's A master's degree (from Latin ) is a postgraduate academic degree awarded by universities or colleges upon completion of a course of study demonstrating mastery or a high-order overview of a specific field of study or area of professional prac ...

degrees from

McMaster University McMaster University (McMaster or Mac) is a public research university in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. The main McMaster campus is on of land near the residential neighbourhoods of Ainslie Wood, Ontario, Ainslie Wood and Westdale, Ontario, Westd ...

before obtaining a

Doctorate A doctorate (from Latin ''doctor'', meaning "teacher") or doctoral degree is a postgraduate academic degree awarded by universities and some other educational institutions, derived from the ancient formalism '' licentia docendi'' ("licence to teach ...

Chemistry Chemistry is the scientific study of the properties and behavior of matter. It is a physical science within the natural sciences that studies the chemical elements that make up matter and chemical compound, compounds made of atoms, molecules a ...

from the

University of Illinois The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (UIUC, U of I, Illinois, or University of Illinois) is a public university, public land-grant university, land-grant research university in the Champaign–Urbana metropolitan area, Illinois, United ...

. He began work at the

Geological Survey of Canada The Geological Survey of Canada (GSC; , CGC) is a Canadian federal government agency responsible for performing geological surveys of the country developing Canada's natural resources and protecting the environment. A branch of the Earth Science ...

in 1915, where he became interested in oil sands. In 1920 he moved to

Edmonton Edmonton is the capital city of the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian province of Alberta. It is situated on the North Saskatchewan River and is the centre of the Edmonton Metropolitan Region, which is surrounded by Central Alberta ...

and joined the

University of Alberta The University of Alberta (also known as U of A or UAlberta, ) is a public research university located in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. It was founded in 1908 by Alexander Cameron Rutherford, the first premier of Alberta, and Henry Marshall Tory, t ...

and the Scientific and Industrial Research Council of Alberta (SIRCA), where he began experimenting with separating bitumen from the

Athabasca oil sands The Athabasca oil sands, also known as the Athabasca tar sands, are large deposits of oil sands rich in bitumen, a heavy and viscous form of petroleum, in northeastern Alberta, Canada. These reserves are one of the largest sources of unconventi ...

, a large oil sand deposit in northeastern

Alberta Alberta is a Provinces and territories of Canada, province in Canada. It is a part of Western Canada and is one of the three Canadian Prairies, prairie provinces. Alberta is bordered by British Columbia to its west, Saskatchewan to its east, t ...

. Clark built a prototype separation plant in the basement of the university's power plant, followed by a larger plant on the outskirts of Edmonton. In 1929, SIRCA patented the process that he had developed. Later testing was done on the outskirts of

Fort McMurray Fort McMurray ( ) is an urban service area in the Regional Municipality of Wood Buffalo in Alberta, Canada. It is located in northeast Alberta, in the middle of the Athabasca oil sands, surrounded by boreal forest. It has played a significa ...

near

Waterways A waterway is any navigable body of water. Broad distinctions are useful to avoid ambiguity, and disambiguation will be of varying importance depending on the nuance of the equivalent word in other ways. A first distinction is necessary betw ...

, and farther north at

Bitumount Bitumount is an abandoned industrial site on the east bank of the Athabasca River about north of Fort McMurray in northeastern Alberta, Canada. Between 1925 and the 1950s, it was the site of early attempts to extract bitumen from the Athabasca oi ...

. Clark retired from the Department of Mining Engineering at the University of Alberta in 1954 but continued to provide advice to the developing oil sands industry. In 1958 he signed a formal retainer with the

Great Canadian Oil Sands Great Canadian Oil Sands Limited was a Canadian heavy oil company that existed between 1953 and 1979. In 1962, GCOS received a permit from the Alberta government to build a 31,500 barrels-per-day synthetic crude plant in the Athabasca oil sands. T ...

consortium, which eventually became a major asset for

Suncor Suncor Energy Inc. () is a Canadian integrated energy company based in Calgary, Alberta. It specializes in production of synthetic crude from oil sands. In the 2020 Forbes Global 2000, Suncor Energy was ranked as the 48th-largest public compan ...

. He continued to do research at SIRCA its succeeding organization, the Research Council of Alberta, until 1963. He died of cancer on December 7, 1966, in Victoria, British Columbia.

References

External links

Biography
at Alberta's Petroleum Heritage Edukit. {{DEFAULTSORT:Clarke, Karl Athabasca oil sands 1888 births 1966 deaths Canadian chemists McMaster University alumni University of Illinois College of Liberal Arts and Sciences alumni Academic staff of the University of Alberta