Search

Oil shale from the Stuart A deposit in Queensland, Australia has been pyrolysed in supercritical toluene in the presence and absence of gas-phase molecular hydrogen. Data have been collected in a 300-cm 3 stirred tank autoclave, at a nominal residence time of 1 h, temperatures of 698 and 733 K, and 14.43 MPa total pressure (at temperature). Results for conversion of organic carbon to oil have been computed based on a carbon balance on the reaction system. The data have shown toluene to be an excellent dense-gas medium for production of shale oil from oil shale. Carbon conversions and oil yields of 86% and 95%, respectively, were achieved in the presence of gas-phase molecular hydrogen. Carbon conversions were severely depressed in the absence of hydrogen, clearly indicating the need for hydrogen activity in order to obtain high oil yields. An overall oil yield of 160% of Fischer Assay was achieved at a relatively low hydrogen consumption and moderate operating conditions.

The oxidative coupling of methane was studied by cofeeding methane and oxygen over a series of titanate catalysts. Many of the titanate catalysts were good combustion catalysts and had poor hydrocarbon selectivities. Calcination and reduction pretreatments were shown to affect the activity of some catalysts: while they had little influence on other titanate catalysts. The lanthanum titanate catalyst had the best hydrocarbon selectivities of the titanates studied, exhibiting methane conversions of 20% and hydrocarbon selectivities of better than 50% for a variety of operating conditions. The effect of operating conditions were studied, and there appears to be an optimum to achieve high yields of ethane and ethylene. The catalyst was studied over a seventy-two hour period and showed very little change with time-on-stream. The lanthanum titanate catalyst activated methane at much lower temperatures than other catalysts; however, its hydrocarbon selectivity was poorer at lower temperatures.

The appearance of brittle, ductile and fatigue fracture surfaces in low carbon steels has been investigated before and after rusting. Removal of all but the lightest rust is essential, and a chemical method is described which does not introduce artefacts in use. Care is required in the interpretation of fractographic features which have been rusted.