Abstract:

The solubility of the materials contained in oil shale has often been questioned. Ordinary water coming directly from purification stations or partially distilled water are of primary interest in the energy industry for exploitation or research. Similarly, given that a large proportion of the Tarfaya oil shale is immersed in the Atlantic Ocean, we thought it would be interesting to study the effect of these types of water on the solubility of kerogen under physical conditions of moderate temperature. Ultra-violet and infra-red spectroscopy was used in this work. As the identification energy of the ultraviolet is fairly high compared with the infrared and visible. We were able to follow the evolution of heavy matter from kerogen. The effect of temperature was also highlighted. Spectroscopic identification uses radiation of varying energies depending on the compounds to be detected. For example, for infrared, the energy used to identify substituted unsaturated aliphatic is higher than that used to identify substituted unsaturated monocyclic. As far as our work is concerned, the energy used for identification by UV is sufficiently higher than that for infrared, which means that the compounds to be detected from oil shale can only be heavy hydrocarbons (branched and multisubstituted unsaturated aliphatic chains). Similarly, supercritical fluid extraction using water and other solvents such as toluene is often used to determine the different fractions of organic compounds in oil shale. We are going to use three analytical methods to highlight this solubility in seawater (subsequently the solubility in distilled water), which are ultra-violet spectroscopy, infra-red spectroscopy and the determination of carbonates (mineral matter) by complexometry.

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