The rate of oil generation in oil shale retorting under reduced pressure was determined by a nonisothermal technique. First-order kinetics adequately approximated the overall retorting rate of Colorado oil shale regardless of the type and pressure of the sweep gas. The activation energy remained relatively constant with pressure for each sweep gas, while the preexponential factor Increased as pressure decreased. The rate expressions for retorting with nitrogen and carbon dioxide were substantially the same, while retorting with water vapor produced a higher rate constant than that with nitrogen or carbon dioxide. The kinetics expression for oil generation remained relatively unchanged for different grades of oil shale containing organic matter of similar compositions.
The principal objective in the mathematical analysis presented here was to describe mathematically the oil yield, the amounts of oil degradation into coke and gas, and the rate of oil generation in the retorting of oil shale at various pressures. The results of the analysis are in good agreement with the experimental results obtained under various retorting conditions. In this analysis, the rate equations for the decomposition of organic matter, the recovery of liquid oil as oil mist or oil vapor, and the stoichiometry factors were determined from the experimental data on powdered oil shale with nitrogen as a sweep gas.
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