Overview

This publication contains selected papers given at a Symposium on the Mass Spectrometric Characterization of Shale Oils that was jointly sponsored by the American Society for Mass Spectrometry (ASMS) and ASTM Committee E-14 on Mass Spectrometry. The symposium was held at the Thirtieth Annual Conference of ASMS, 6-11 June 1982, Honolulu, HI. The symposium was organized to provide mass spectrometry practitioners with information on state-of-the-art methodology for the characterization of shale oils. This information should be also useful for chemists and engineers that are involved in developing processes for the use of shale oils or, in general, any type of synthetic fuel (synfuel). Characterization of complex synfuel or petroleum mixtures or both that are designated for ultimate use by industry and the public at large has several important objectives. First, such characterization is essential for the fundamental understanding of the chemistry involved in generating a particular material, for example, obtaining liquid synfuels from coal or oil shale. Second, in-depth characterization is required to monitor the efficiency of upgrading processes that convert raw synfuels into commercially useful end products. Such processes will be required in most cases and might involve several steps, each with a different function and therefore presenting different analytical challenges. Thirdly, potential impact on the environment of the end products must also be assessed. The main point is that determination of the chemical composition of complex fossil fuels is a prime requirement for developing a viable and economical process. The above considerations apply well to the production and upgrading of shale oils. Shale oils are very complex mixtures and so are the processes designed to deal with their production and upgrading. This complexity makes indepth analysis of shale oils a significant challenge that, in general, can be solved only by using a multiple technique analytical approach. The complexity of shale oils is well illustrated by a simple list of major components that are likely to be present in typical samples. These include normal and isoparaffins, cycloparaffins, linear and cyclic olefins, one to four plus ring aromatics, aromatic olefins, aromatic thiophenes and furans, phenols, ketones, both aliphatic and aromatic nitrogen compounds, components with more than one heteroatom per molecule, and so forth for a total of 150 to 200 compound types (homologous series). Each compound type consists of at least 20 to 50 carbon number homologs and a much larger number of individual isomers.