Abstract
Two samples of oil shales from the Sultani and Jurf-Edarawish deposits
in the south of Jordan were pyrolysed in a fixed bed reactor under
nitrogen and nitrogen/steam atmosphere. A heating rate of 5, l0, 20
and 40 °C min-l to a final temperature of 950 °C was investigated in a
fixed bed reactor and TGA. It was found that increasing heating rate
shifted the reaction to a higher temperature and a decrease in the
activation energy. The chemical composition and elemental analysis, of
the oil shales were obtained. The condensed pyrolytic oils were
fractionated into chemical classes using mini-column liquid chromatography.
The molecular weight (MW) range of the derived oils was measured
using size exclusion chromatography and the number average
MW of the benzene, ethyl acetate and methanol fractions of the
derived oil were obtained.