EAP - Oil Shale publications

PUBLISHED
SINCE 1984

Oil Shale

ISSN 1736-7492 (Electronic)
ISSN 0208-189X (Print)

Open Access Journal

CiteScore: 2.6

Impact Factor (2022): 1.9

RETORTING PROPERTIES OF OIL SHALE FOUND AT THE NORTHERN FOOT OF BOGDA MOUNTAIN, CHINA; pp. 19–28

PDF | doi: 10.3176/oil.2011.1.03

Authors

SHU TAO, DA-ZHEN TANG, HAO XU, JIA-LI CAI, MING-FU GOU, ZHEN-LONG CHEN

Abstract

On the basis of pyrolysis gas chromatography (PGC) technique, the retorting process of oil shale found at the northern foot of Bogda Mountain was simulated by a step-by-step procedure. The dynamic changes in recovery of all kinds of oil (gas) products, and their total recovery rate at different temperature ranges during pyrolysis were studied. Meanwhile, the reasons for these changes were analyzed, and the properties of oil shale were discussed. This paper provides some parameters to evaluate these properties precisely. The results show that the retorting process and the corresponding pyrolysis occur in three stages: 1) a few hydrocarbon products are generated below 410 °C, their amount increasing slowly with temperature; 2) the amount of hydrocarbon products increases rapidly in the range of 450–510 °C, accounting for 70% of the total, and the yield has maximum at about 490 °C; 3) gaseous hydrocarbons are the main products above 510 °C, whereas their yield is small. Oil shale found at northern foot of Bogda Mountain is characterized by the advantage to yield light oil. In future processing and refining, the temperature should be maintained between 450 °C and 510 °C to recover oil (gas) products, especially light oil, effectively. Original hydrocarbon-generating potential is the principal factor in controlling the behavior of oil shale during the process. The greater the original hydrocarbon-generating potential, the larger the amount of heavy oil products generated at the high-temperature stage.

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