Karl Clark (chemist)

Karl Adolf Clark (20 October 1888, Georgetown, Ontario – 1966) was a chemist and oil sand researcher. He is best known for perfecting a process that uses hot water and reagents to separate oil from oil sands.

Dr. Karl Clark and guide Romeo Eymundson on the bank of the Athabasca River during one of Clark's oil sands expeditions, 1920s. From the Charles Eymundson fonds.

Clark earned Bachelor's and Master's degrees from McMaster University before obtaining a Doctorate in Chemistry from the University of Illinois. He began work at the Geological Survey of Canada in 1915, where he became interested in oil sands. In 1920 he moved to Edmonton and joined the University of Alberta and a forerunner of the Alberta Research Council, where be began experimenting with separating oil from the Athabasca oil sands, a large deposit of bitumen in northeastern Alberta.

Dr. 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, and in 1929 the Alberta Research Council patented the process that he had developed. Later testing was done on the outskirts of Fort McMurray near Waterways, and farther north at Bitumount.

Dr. Clark retired from the Department of Mining Engineering at the University of Alberta in 1954 but continued to provided advice to the developing oil sands industry. In 1958 he signed a formal retainer with the Great Canadian Oil Sands consortium, which eventually became a major asset for Suncor. He continued to do research at the Alberta Research Council until 1963. He passed on in 1966.

External links

• Biography at Alberta's Petroleum Heritage Edukit.