Composition, Geochemistry and Conversion of Oil Shales

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-x

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2. Reviews: Geochemistry & Characterisation

   1. Organic Petrography: Principles and Techniques

      • Adrian C. Hutton

      Pages 1-16

   2. Organic Petrography of Oil Shales

      • Adrian C. Hutton

      Pages 17-33

   3. Demineralization and Kerogen Maceral Separation and Chemistry

      • Thomas L. Robl, Darrell N. Taulbee

      Pages 35-50

   4. Alkane Biomarkers. Geochemical Significance and Application in Oil Shale Geochemistry

      • F. J. Gonzalez-Vila

      Pages 51-68

   5. Solid-State 13C NMR in Oil Shale Research: An Introduction with Selected Applications

      • Francis P. Miknis

      Pages 69-91

   6. Introduction to Mass Spectrometric Techniques for Fossil Fuel Analysis

      • Garret A. Veloski, Curt M. White

      Pages 93-105

   7. An Introduction to Open-Tubular Gas Chromatography--Analysis of Fossil and Synthetic Fuels

      • C. M. White

      Pages 107-123

   8. Speciation of Organic Sulphur Forms in Solid Fuels and Heavy Oils

      • C. E. Snape, K. Ismail, S. C. Mitchell, K. D. Bartle

      Pages 125-142

   9. Detailed Structural Characterization of the Organic Material in Rundle Ramsay Crossing and Green River Oil Shales

      • M. Siskin, C. G. Scouten, K. D. Rose, T. Aczel, S. G. Colgrove, R. E. Pabst Jr.

      Pages 143-158

3. Reviews; Conversion; Processing, Mechanisms and Products

   1. Economic Considerations of the Oil Shale and Related Conversion Processes

      • E. Ekinci

      Pages 159-174

   2. Oil Shale Beneficiation for Processing

      • J. G. Groppo

      Pages 175-189

   3. Methods of Oil Shale Analysis

      • Francis P. Miknis

      Pages 191-209

   4. Relationship between Hydrous and Ordinary Pyrolysis

      • Alan K. Burnham

      Pages 211-227

   5. Fluidized Bed Retorting of Oil Shale

      • S. D. Carter, U. M. Graham, A. M. Rubel, T. L. Robl

      Pages 229-245

   6. Steam and Coprocessing of Oil Shales

      • E. Ekinci, Y. Yürüm

      Pages 247-262

   7. Chemical Kinetics and Oil Shale Process Design

      • Alan K. Burnham

      Pages 263-276

   8. Hydropyrolysis: Fundamentals, Two-Stage Processing and PDU Operation

      • M. J. Roberts, C. E. Snape, S. C. Mitchell

      Pages 277-293

   9. The Bitumen Intermediate in Isothermal and Nonisothermal Decomposition of Oil Shales

      • Francis P. Miknis, Thomas F. Turner

      Pages 295-311

   10. Aqueous Organic Chemistry: Geochemical Aspects

       • Michael Siskin, Alan R. Katritzky

       Pages 313-327

Oil shales are broadly dermed as petroleum source rocks containing sufficiently high contents of organic matter (above ca 10-15 wt. %) to make utilisation a possibility. Like coal, the world's reserves of oil shales are vast being many times larger than those proven for crude oil. Indeed, some of the largest deposits occur in the USA and Europe where Estonia and Turkey have large reserves. The first recorded interest in oil shale retorting was an English patent in 1694 (Eele, Hancock and Porter, No. 330) which refers to distilling noyle from some kind of stone". The oil shale retorting industry dates back to the middle of the last century, notably Scotland, Estonia, France and Sweden in Europe. Indeed, my own Department at the University of Strathclyde has a historical link with James "Paraffin" Young, the founder of the Scottish oil shale industry who endowed a chair in Applied Chemistry. The growth of the oil industry saw the demise of the oil shale industry in most countries with the notable exception of Estonia, where kukersite has continued to be used for power generation and retorting. However, oil shale utilisation has attracted renewed attention since the early 1970s as a source of transport fuels and chemical feedstocks due to the the long term uncertainties over crude oil supplies.

• analytical chemistry
• combustion
• geochemistry
• isotope
• kinetics
• structure
• economic geology

• Department of Pure and Applied Chemistry, University of Stratchclyde, Glasgow, Scotland, UK

  Colin Snape

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