| Abstract: | Two Chinese immature oil shales from the continental deposits of kerogen type I and II have been thermally treated combined with the technique of supercritical fluid extraction at 630–650 K and 15–25 MPa in a semi-continuous laboratory scale apparatus. Toluence is selected as the solvent. Up to 70–80% of the kerogen matrix can be converted to a thermal bitumen and extracted simultaneously. The chemical structural parameters from the NMR, IR, XRD, ESR and EA analyses of the kerogen and the thermal bitumen show striking resemblance in nature. It implies that the thermal bitumen is primarily a depolymerized product of the kerogen. Based on the GC/MS spectra of the aliphatic eluate of the thermal bitumen, the predominance of the odd/even ratio of the alkanes and the epimeric ratios, such as 20S(20S + 20R) of C-29 steranes and 22S/(22S + 22R) of C-32 terpanes, show that the maturity of the thermal bitumen from these oil shales is comparable to that of commercial immature oils from East China. The thermal bitumen is thought to be an intermediate product of the thermal degradation of kerogen.Since the thermal bitumen is mainly composed of asphaltenes and resins, it has a structure of gel. The gel-state bitumen may turn to sol-state readily due to its low aromaticity and polarity, or due to selective adsorption of asphaltenes by clay minerals. Then the migration potential of the bitumen is enhanced.Consequently, under favorable geological conditions, the thermal depolymerization of kerogen seems to be a probable mechanism to explain the formation of immature oils. |
