Estonian oil shale is characterized by relatively high content of oxygen and specific structure of organic matter that lead to the fact that its thermal decomposition products contain more phenols than other fuels. These oil shale phenols are also quite specific and consist mainly of resorcinol and its alkyl derivatives, but contain monobasic phenols, naphthols, and polybasic phenols as well. Up to now for separation of these phenols gas and liquid chromatography have been used. In this study for separation of oil shale phenols capillary electrophoresis (CE) was utilized. Two modes of CE viz. capillary zone electrophoresis and micellar electrokinetic chromatography (MEKC) were tested for separation of phenolic substances and it was demonstrated that using MEKC practically all phenols present in oil shale products could be separated.

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