Properties of kukersite shale oil

Abstract

Inspite of the increasing focus on reducing carbon dioxide emissions, production of shale oil continues to be economically favorable, and production has even increased in recent years. Producing and handling shale oil requires data on its properties, and to provide this data we have undertaken an extensive project to experimentally measure the properties of Estonian kukersite shale oil. In this article we describe the sample preparation methods and present experimental data on key properties of the shale oil samples. Included is data on the densities, refractive indexes, average boiling points, and molar masses of distillation fractions with narrow boiling ranges. A major component of kukersite shale oil is phenolic compounds, and to investigate their effect on the properties we used extraction to obtain samples with either fewer or more phenols than commonly found in the oil. The effect of composition on the properties is discussed. We also present correlations for calculating one of these properties if two others are known. This article lays the groundwork for future articles which will go into further detail on specific properties of these samples.