Solid-Acid Catalytic Conversion of Oil Shale: Effects of Sulfonic Acid Grafting on Oil Yield Enhancing and Quality Improvement

Xianglong Meng; Zhilei Qi; Cong Yu; Junjie Bian; Zhongliang Ma; Qiulian Long; Jianzheng Su

doi:10.1021/acsomega.0c06264

Solid-Acid Catalytic Conversion of Oil Shale: Effects of Sulfonic Acid Grafting on Oil Yield Enhancing and Quality Improvement

ACS Omega. 2021 Feb 16;6(8):5836-5845. doi: 10.1021/acsomega.0c06264. eCollection 2021 Mar 2.

Authors

Xianglong Meng^{1

2}, Zhilei Qi³, Cong Yu³, Junjie Bian³, Zhongliang Ma^{1

2}, Qiulian Long^{1

2}, Jianzheng Su^{1

2}

Affiliations

¹ State Research and Development Center for Oil Shale Exploitation, SINOPEC, Beijing 100728, China.
² Sinopec Petroleum Exploration and Production Research Institute, SINOPEC, Beijing 100728, China.
³ Key Laboratory of Marine Chemistry Theory and Technology of Ministry of Education, Ocean University of China, Qingdao 266010, China.

Abstract

Oil shale is a promising unconventional resource and in situ upgrading technology has been a practical approach for enhancing oil and gas recovery. Mineral-based clin/SBA-15 has been prepared and subsequently functionalized to get SO₃H-SBA-15 catalysts. Compared with the noncatalytic conversion of oil shale under subcritical water, sulfonic acid grafted catalysts have played a predominant role in enhancing the oil yield by 3-16% and improving oil qualities. The O/C atomic ratio was declined to 0.10-0.11, while the hydrocarbon yield was sharply increased to 47-60% from 34%. The energy recovery has been elevated to 75-82%, and the produced oil had a heating value of 35-37 MJ/kg. Compared with that without catalyst, the energy recovery rate is 34.55%, and the heating value is 23.61 MJ/kg. The overall oil yield showed a linear trend with respect to the medium and strong acid amounts on SO₃H-SBA-15 in the aqueous conversion of oil shale. It was indicated that the SO₃H- group assisted in the depolymerization via the C-C and C-O bond breaking. Upon the addition of SO₃H-SBA-15, the activation energies of the oil shale catalytic conversation are decreased dramatically to 78 kJ/mol. It provided a practical approach for the in situ upgrading of oil shale under milder reaction conditions.