The uncertainty about the current prices of petroleum, its growing worldwide consumption and limited availability have motivated many countries rich in oil shale resource to explore more efficient retorting technologies to widely produce and use shale oil as an alternative. On the basis of the retorting technology progress and the characteristics of oil shale, this paper recommends a combined system with a fluidized bed (FB) reactor for retorting oil shale and a circulating fluidized bed (CFB) boiler for burning semicoke and fuel gases, realizing the effective and clean use of oil shale. The FB retort and CFB boiler are arranged side-by-side, and hot circulating ash and semicoke will be conveyed from one side to the other. Both CFB circulating ash and fuel gases as fluidizing gases of the FB retort are proposed to be heat carriers together, transferring the combustion heat from the CFB to oil shale in the FB retort. Retorting temperature, heat capacity distribution of heat carriers and parameter optimization of the whole system are further discussed as key issues.
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