Oil shale dry distillation for oil production

Thread Content

This post was last edited by jordan569 on 2013-1-6 at 21:30. The low-temperature dry distillation of oil shale for oil refining, as well as the further processing of shale oil, involves treating oil shale under air-free conditions by controlling the heating temperature within the range of 450–600°C. However, under current technical conditions, due to the high selectivity of the dry distillation process regarding the particle size of the raw materials, the energy conversion efficiency for extracting shale oil from shale is relatively low, and pollution is severe. Moreover, the extracted shale oil contains 40–60% polar compounds and >1% nitrogen-containing compounds; therefore, hydrogenation treatment must be carried out first to remove these polar substances before it can be refined using conventional methods. Therefore, improving extraction technologies and enhancing their energy conversion efficiency have become an important aspect of current research on oil shale utilization. Shale oil extracted from oil shale can be used directly as a liquid fuel for boilers or industrial furnaces. Industrially, shale oil can also be further processed through thermal treatment and hydrorefining processes to produce products such as gasoline, kerosene, diesel, wax, and petroleum coke. Industrial production of using oil shale for retorting to produce shale oil and fuel gas began in Western European countries such as France, the United Kingdom, Germany, and Spain in the first half of the 19th century. Over the past century, shale oil production has experienced many ups and downs, and to this day only four countries – Estonia, Russia, China, and Brazil – are engaged in its production. Estonia’s two oil shale refineries, using Kiviter and Galoter furnaces, produce 400,000 tons of shale oil per year. The shale refinery in Shale City, in the St. Petersburg region of Russia, processes 1.5 million tons of shale per year, producing 200,000 tons of shale oil. The shale oil produced is mainly used to manufacture chemical products with high added value. Brazil’s oil shale is of low quality. Petrosix owns two large-scale industrial facilities for processing oil shale, each capable of handling about 10,000 tons of oil shale per day; these facilities produce gas with high calorific value and shale oil, while also extracting sulfur and radioactive uranium from the oil shale. Foreign countries have advanced refining technologies, enabling oil recovery rates of over 90%, but semi-coke or ash residues are still rarely utilized. China has been exploiting oil shale for over 70 years, primarily for the extraction of shale oil, the production of gas, and direct combustion as fuel; it has accumulated rich and mature technical expertise, especially in the extraction of shale oil. China’s shale oil industry in Fushun began in 1928, and it developed rapidly after the founding of the People’s Republic of China. By the mid-1980s, the Fushun Shale Oil Refinery had 60 Fushun-type retorting furnaces, with an annual production of 60,000 tons of shale oil; by the 1990s, another 20 furnaces were added, raising the annual production to 90,000 tons. In 2004, Jilin Huadian Beitaizi Oil Shale Development Co., Ltd. built an oil refinery equipped with 8 Fushun-type retorting furnaces, capable of processing 200,000 tons of oil shale per year to produce 15,000 tons of shale oil. In 2005, Longteng Energy Development Co., Ltd. in Wangqing County, Jilin Province, began construction of an oil shale refinery in Luozigou, Wangqing. The project entailed an annual production capacity of 3 million tons of oil shale, 100,000–150,000 tons of shale oil, a gas power plant with a capacity of 6,000 KW, as well as associated factories for producing ceramsite and lightweight building blocks. Currently, 20 Fushun-type retorting furnaces and 6 gas-heated furnaces have been put into operation. An annual production of 30,000 tons of shale oil. However, the oil yield of the domestic Fushun-style refining technology is relatively low, at around 63% only. Note $ # $ $