Shale products from

The TOSCOAL Process. The Oil Shale Corp. (TOSCO) piloted the low temperature carbonization of Wyoming subbituminous coals over a two-year period in its 23 t/d pilot plant at Rocky Falls, Colorado (149). The principal objective was the upgrading of the heating value in order to reduce transportation costs on a heating value basis. Hence, the soHd char product from the process represented 50 wt % of the starting coal but had 80% of its heating value. 

Petroleum refining, also called petroleum processing, is the recovery and/or generation of usable or salable fractions and products from cmde oil, either by distillation or by chemical reaction of the cmde oil constituents under the effects of heat and pressure. Synthetic cmde oil, produced from tar sand (oil sand) bitumen, and heavier oils are also used as feedstocks in some refineries. Heavy oil conversion (1), as practiced in many refineries, does not fall into the category of synthetic fuels (syncmde) production. In terms of Hquid fuels from coal and other carbonaceous feedstocks, such as oil shale (qv), the concept of a synthetic fuels industry has diminished over the past several years as being uneconomical in light of current petroleum prices. 

Synthetic fuels derived from shale or coal will have to supplement domestic suppHes from petroleum someday, and aircraft gas turbine fuels producible from these sources have been assessed. Shale-derived fuels can meet current specifications if steps are taken to reduce the nitrogen levels. However, extracting kerogen from shale rock and denitrogenating the jet fuel are energy-intensive steps compared with petroleum refining it has been estimated that shale jet fuel could be produced at about 70% thermal efficiency compared with 95% efficiency for petroleum (25). Such a difference represents much higher cost for a shale product. 

World oil-shale production fell from its peak of 46 Mt in 1980 to about 16 Mt in 2000 (Brendow, 2003). At present, about 69% of world oil-shale production is used for the generation of electricity and heat, about 6% for cement production and other industrial uses, and 25% is processed into shale oil. Oil shale has been burned directly as a very low-grade, high-ash-content fuel in a few countries, such as Estonia, which is also the only country in Europe where oil shale is of any importance. With a yearly production of about 14 Mt, oil shale still generated more than 90% of the electricity in Estonia at the time of writing, and also most of Estonia s 7000 b/d oil production comes from oil shale. Other countries where surface retorting of oil shale has been used for many years to yield shale oil are Brazil and China, which produced 3100 b/d and 1500 b/d in 2002,... 

Both the production of hydrogen from coal and the production of oil from unconventional resources (oil sands, oil shale, CTL, GTL) result in high C02 emissions and substantially increase the carbon footprint of fuel supply, unless the C02 is captured and stored. While the capture of C02 at a central point source is equally possible for unconventionals and centralised hydrogen production, in the case of hydrogen, a C02-free fuel results, unlike in the case of liquid hydrocarbon fuels. This is all the more important, as around 80% of the WTW C02 emissions result from the fuel use in the vehicles. If CCS were applied to hydrogen production from biomass, a net C02 removal from the atmosphere would even be achievable. 

In the past decade, a very large interest in this technology has developed. Research is based on studying the surface properties of coal and its adsorption characteristics. Oil production from shales is increasing as the oil prices increase. Additionally, in many coal operations, the dust is controlled by the washwater process. 

On a qualitative basis, the estimates of recovered sulfur from refinery operations appear to be the most secure. Except for district IV, which depends heavily on the ultimate productivity of the Overthrust Belt, estimates of sulfur production from sour natural gas also seem reliable. The heavy crude oil sulfur output estimate is reasonably firm. Oil shale, tar sands, heavy oil and in situ coal combustion will produce little sulfur even under optimistic scenarios. The smelter acid projection is weak. Metal output may... 

Methanol as Source ofSNG. Methanol can be produced from a large range of feedstocks by a variety of processes. Natural gas. liquefied petroleum gas (LPG), naphthas, residua] oils, asphalt, oil shale, and coal are in the forefront as feedstocks to produce methanol, with wood and waste products from farms and municipalities possible additional feedstock sources, hi order to synthesize methanol, the main feedstocks are converted to a mixture of hydrogen and carbon oxides (synthesis gas) by steam reforming, partial oxidation, or gasification. The hydrogen and carbon oxides are then converted to methanol over a catalyst. 

Although the first major use of coal liquids will be as boiler fuels, it is clear that in order to make the largest impact on the U.S. liquid fuel demand, products from direct liquefaction have to be upgraded to quality liquid fuels for both transportation and home heating oil uses. The products coming from the all-distillate coal liquefaction processes such as H-Coal Syncrude, SRC-II and Donor Solvent, along with shale oil production will be candidates for use as refinery feedstock. 

Hydrotreated shale oil has an advantage as a refinery feed. In contrast to most petroleum crude oils, it contains essentially no residuum. Properties of the hydrotreated product from whole shale oil are similar to those of distillate fractions from waxy petroleum Arabian or Sumatran crudes. An exception is the sulfur content which is much lower for hydrotreated shale oil than for most crudes. 

The source of hydrogen for coal liquids production could be, as in the case of shale oil production, either the gas or the bottoms product from the liquids plant. Again, the choice of feedstock for hydrogen production will be dictated by economic, market, and environmental considerations. 

These properties of oil shale lead to basic assumptions concerning the fate of trace elements during oil shale retorting. From an economic viewpoint, no trace elements occur in extractable quantities in typical oil shale. Any by-product recovery of inorganic materials probably will... 

This same technique was applied to three whole shale oil products from our controlled-state retort which has been described previously (13). The polars were removed on Florisil, and the hydroboration/oxidation and acid absorption operations were carried out on samples from 1 to 2 g which were large enough to allow for gravimetric determination of material lost on treatment. The methods usually give results which agree within 2% for each material determined directly. Results of analysis of the three oils are presented in Table II. Oils A, B, and C were produced in the retort, each at a different heating rate 0.04°F, 2°F, and 20°F min respectively. 

The feedstocks utilized in this program were derived from a midcontinent and mid-east crude mix, from H-Coal liquefaction of No. 6 Illinois coal, and from the shale liquefaction product from the TOSCO II conversion of Parachute Creek shale. Analyses of the full-range liquids is presented in Table I. Attention is directed to the high nitrogen and... 

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