Pyrolysis Kinetics of Oil Shale and its Kerogen

The pyrolysis kinetics of Chinese oil shale and its kerogen was investigated using thermo gravimetric analysis (TGA) in this paper. Experiments were performed at four different heating rates of 10, 15, 20 and 25°C/min from ambient temperature to 560 °C at nitrogen flux with 60ml/min. The results demonstrated that the thermal decomposition of oil shale and its kerogen involved three degradation steps. Different thermo gravimetric data were analyzed by Friedman procedure. The values of apparent activation energy E of oil shale ranged from 160kJ/ mol to 240kJ/mol, but these of kerogen were in the range of 150kJ/mol to 240kJ/mol. It was found that the plot of lnA versus E became a linear line with a regression coefficient of 0.99.