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U.S. Department of Energy
Office of Scientific and Technical Information

Process for recovery of oil from shale

Patent ·
OSTI ID:5357700

A method and apparatus for recovering oil from shale comprises forming a bed of oil bearing shale particles on a plurality of rotatable apertured cylindrical rollers having filler members in the nip between adjacent rollers; transporting the bed by rotating the rollers to frictionally engage the shale particles and transfer them onto and across the filler members to continuously agitate the particles as they are being transported at a velocity substantially lower than the circumferential velocity of the rollers; passing through the moving bed at spaced points a plurality of discrete streams of nonoxidizing gas heated to different temperatures sufficiently high to educe different weight fractions of oil from the kerogen in the shale as vapors into the gas streams; and separating the different weight oil fractions from the gas streams. Preferably the heated nonoxidizing gas streams exiting the retorting zones are passed through the moving bed upstream from distillation of the volatile oil constituents to preheat the moving bed and condense the educted oils which become suspended as stable mists that can be separated from the gas streams.

Assignee:
Allis-Chalmers Corp.
Patent Number(s):
US 4412926
OSTI ID:
5357700
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English