The Effect of a Solvent System on the Yield and Fractional Composition of Bitumen Extracted From the El-lajjun and Sultani Oil Shale Deposits

Abstract

Oil shale samples from two oil shale deposits in Jordan (El-lajjun & Sultani) were examined for solvation using different solvent systems, such as chloroform, ethanol, hexane, toluene, and a mixture of chloroform-ethanol. Aliphatic, aromatic, asphaltenes, and nitrogen, sulfur, oxygen (NSO)-containing fractions were separated from the obtained extract. The 1 H-NMR and FT-IR spectrum of bitumen extract shows the presence of saturated and unsaturated hydrocarbons. The quantity of these fractions are affected by the polarity and the structure of the solvent. The yield of bitumen from both deposits has a limited value and does not exceed 3 wt%. Samples from Sultani show an increase in extracted bitumen yield compared with El-lajjun.

Extraction of Oil From Jordanian Attarat Oil Shale

“…The maximum yield of TBO achieved is only 12%, and the maximum transformation degree of the oil shale is 17-18% of the dry shale. The yields are close to those obtained at semicoking of Jordanian oil shales in the Fischer Assay [6,7,11,13,14] and depicted in Figure 1.…”

“…In Jordanian oil shale the share of OM soluble in organic solvents without thermal decomposition (bitumen) is quite high. Al-Harasheh [6] and Shawaqfeh and Al-Harasheh [7] have studied the extraction of bitumen from El-Lajjun and Sultani oil shales using different types of solvents by continuous contact mixing. The oil yield obtained in the Fischer Assay of the samples was respectively 9.38 and 12.45%.…”

“…The yield of bitumen depended on the solvent type and deposit and decreased from 3 to 0.5% in the row: chloroform, toluene, hexane and ethanol for the Sultani deposit whereas for the El-Lajjun deposit hexane was the weakest solvent. It was proved in [6] that distribution of aliphatic and aromatic hydrocarbons, hetero-compounds and asphaltenes was affected by polarity of solvents. Guo [8] explained that the solubility in different solvents depended upon their ability to disrupt the non-covalent bond interactions between bitumen and kerogen.…”