KENTORT II is an above-ground

shale oil extraction Shale oil extraction is an industrial process for unconventional oil production. This process converts kerogen in oil shale into shale oil by pyrolysis, hydrogenation, or thermal dissolution. The resultant shale oil is used as fuel oil or ...

process developed by the Center for Applied Energy Research of the

University of Kentucky The University of Kentucky (UK, UKY, or U of K) is a Public University, public Land-grant University, land-grant research university in Lexington, Kentucky, United States. Founded in 1865 by John Bryan Bowman as the Agricultural and Mechanical ...

. It is a hot recycled solids

fluidized bed A fluidized bed is a physical phenomenon that occurs when a solid particulate substance (usually present in a holding vessel) is under the right conditions so that it behaves like a fluid. The usual way to achieve a fluidized bed is to pump press ...

retorting process developed since 1982 for processing the eastern

United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...

Devonian The Devonian ( ) is a period (geology), geologic period and system (stratigraphy), system of the Paleozoic era (geology), era during the Phanerozoic eon (geology), eon, spanning 60.3 million years from the end of the preceding Silurian per ...

oil shale Oil shale is an organic-rich Granularity, fine-grained sedimentary rock containing kerogen (a solid mixture of Organic compound, organic chemical compounds) from which liquid hydrocarbons can be produced. In addition to kerogen, general compos ...

s. The concept of this process was initiated in 1986 in the test unit. The KENTORT II retort consists of four fluidized bed vessels, configured in cascade. The raw oil shale is fed to the

pyrolysis Pyrolysis is a process involving the Bond cleavage, separation of covalent bonds in organic matter by thermal decomposition within an Chemically inert, inert environment without oxygen. Etymology The word ''pyrolysis'' is coined from the Gree ...

vessel the pyrolysis section, where it is fluidized by a mixture of steam and product

oil shale gas Oil shale gas (also: retort gas or retorting gas) is a synthetic non-condensable gas mixture (syngas) produced by oil shale thermal processing (pyrolysis). Although often referred to as shale gas, it differs from the natural gas produced from shal ...

from the gasification section below. Heat is transferred to the raw oil shale by a combination of fluidizing gas and recirculating hot

spent shale Spent shale or spent oil shale (also known as retorted shale) is a solid residue from the shale oil extraction process of producing synthetic shale oil from oil shale. It consists of inorganic compounds (minerals) and remaining organic matter kno ...

from the gasification section. The pyrolysis takes place at to . The pyrolyzed oil shale moves by gravity downward to the gasification section. Gasification, which takes place at to , converts remained

carbon Carbon () is a chemical element; it has chemical symbol, symbol C and atomic number 6. It is nonmetallic and tetravalence, tetravalent—meaning that its atoms are able to form up to four covalent bonds due to its valence shell exhibiting 4 ...

in the spent shale ( char) to product oil shale gas. Steam from the cooling zone is used for fluidizing the sent shale while heat transferred by hot solids (oil shale ash) from the combustion section. The spent shale moves to the combustion section where it is burnt to heat the process, while oil shale ash moves to the cooling section before its removal from the retort.

References

{{Reflist Oil shale technology Thermal treatment

See also

References