GB1154108A - Pyrolysis of Oil Bearing Minerals. - Google Patents

Abstract

1,154,108. Distilling oil shale .&c. McDOWELL-WELLMAN ENG. CO. 4 April, 1967, No. 12454/67. Heading C5E. Oil shale, tar sands, coal, lignite or other oilbearing organic material, e.g. cellulose material, is treated on a moving grate of the circular or straight line kind by being passed successively through two zones. In the first zone hot gases traverse the shale &c. to heat a portion of it to at least 800‹ F. and educt from it oil which is condensed in a portion of the shale which is below oil-educting temperature, the oil being separated from the gases which are passed to the second zone where they traverse the oildepleted shale &c. and are heated prior to being recycled to the first zone. The gases may traverse the shale &c. upwardly or downwardly, and air or other O 2 - containing gas may be delivered to gases in the second zone to burn off uncondensed hydrocarbons and raise the gas temperature to 1200‹ to 1400‹ F. An ignition zone may precede the first zone; see Figs. 2 and 6 (not shown), and an unspecified cracking catalyst may form the base layer on the grate. In one modification, Fig. 4 (not shown) an intermediate sintering zone is provided to which air or hot combustion gases are delivered to raise the bed temperature, oil-depleted gases from this zone also being delivered to the second main zone. Other modifications are described in which oil obtained from the first zone is recycled to an intermediate zone (Fig. 7) where wax-like molecules in the oil are cracked to alter its viscosity, and in Figs. 8 to 10 are shown various oil and gas recycle circuits to different zones.