Design of a Pyrolysis Plant to Produce Shale Oil

Authors

Ubillas, Carlos

Pretell, Victor

Manrique, Herbert

Ramos, Williams

Abstract

Shale oil is an alternative energy resource for oil production and can be obtained from the pyrolysis of oil shale. In Peru, a deposit has been in the Lancones basin that has geological and geochemical characteristics that indicate the possible existence of oil shale. A pyrolysis plant for oil shale in the Lancones basin-Peru was designed and simulated, the pyrolysis kinetics was determined by applying the KAS isoconversional method, three reaction zones were identified and was obtained for the conversion range [0.05,0.20] E_a of 97.7 kJ/mol and an A_a equal to 1.64E+04 min-1, with an f(α) of the D3 type; for the conversion range <0.20,0.50] an E_a of 158.8 kJ/mol and an A_a equal to 7.63E+07 min-1 with an f(α) of type D1 and for the conversion range <0.50,0.95] an E_a of 163.8 kJ/mol and an A_a equal to 4.87E+07 min-1, with an f(α) of type R2. The pyrolysis plant comprises three stages: drying, pyrolysis and condensation. For a load of 375 t/h of oil shale and a period of 4 hours, a conversion of 90% of the organic material was obtained with a production of 3 t/h (611.8 bbl/d) of shale oil. This production is greater than the production of oil fields II and IX located in the same basin.