Nahcolite volatile oils

The volatile oils were collected by heating the air-dried, acid washed nahcolite or trona residues in a Vycor or quartz tube in a tube furnace under N2 to 150° C, 250° C, 400° C and 650° C. Heat up time was 10-20 minutes. The liquid product was collected in a series of traps, consisting of an air cooled condenser, an ice-water trap, and a liquid nitrogen trap, Figure 1. 

Figure 1. A pparatus for trapping volatile oils from nahcolite and trona.

Comparison of Trona and Nahcolite Behavior with TGA, Acid Slurry Treatment and Volatile Oil Determination... 

In summary, the yield of volatile oil was larger for nahcolite than for trona. Thermal gravimetric analysis of the acid insoluble fractions of the mineral yielded good results comparable with the determination of volatile oils by direct heating and weighing. 

A significant finding of this study was the fact that the two volatile oils investigated from nahcolite and trona were very similar and that they closely resemble shale oil, both from our observations and from the literature (l t, 15). Since the minerals are found in nature near oil shale or in some cases intimately mixed with the shale this is an expected observation. Environmental hazards as well as other oil properties can probably be inferred from studies carried out by numerous investigators with shale oils. 

Nahcolite and Trona were heated at 250-650°, yielding 1.3 and 0.2% volatile organic compounds. Proton and carbon-13 NMR and capillary gas chromatography indicated homologous series of n-alkanes and 1-alkenes from C9 to C29. The samples resembled shale oil. 

Thermal gravimetric analysis showed volatilization of 5.7% of the acid-insolubles of nahcolite and 1.8% of the acid insolubles of trona. After correction to weight of original mineral, the oil represented 1.2% of the nahcolite and 0.3% of the trona. A typical thermogram is shown in Figure 3. The major amounts of oil volatilized between 400°C and 550°C. Table 1 summarizes the data obtained. 

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