THERMAL BEHAVIOUR AND KINETICS OF AHOKO OIL SHALE, POLYSTYRENE, AND THEIR MIXTURE

Abstract

The rise in energy costs had led to seeking for sources of non-conventional fuels as alternatives without much alteration to the present system of refining conventional oils. Ahoko oil shale which is part of the Bida basin has been investigated by Pyrolysis. The pyrolysis of the Oil shale, polystyrene and their mixture at 1:1 was performed using a Perkin Elmer TGA 4000 (Netherland) machine through the use of nitrogen as the purge gas for the experiment at a heating rate of 10◦C/min. Proximate analysis was carried out on the oil shale sample. The TGA results were used to determine the kinetic parameters with a temperature range of 260oC-580oC using Arrhenius equation, this was done according to the behavior of the quantity ln{(1/1-C) (dc/dt)} vs 1/T(K-1) for the sample of oil shale, polystyrene and their mixture. The oil shale, polystyrene and their mixture was found to have an activation energy (Ea) of 45.19 KJ/Mol., 153.14 KJ/Mol. And 52.95KJ/Mol respectively: while the Pre-exponential factor (A) of the three samples were also found to be 432.54 sec-1, 4.76 𝑋 103sec-1and 82.26 sec- 1respectively. This research was carried out to investigate the effect of polystyrene on Ahoko oil shale, its effect indicates a lower activation energy when pyrolysed together than when it is carried out singly. This confirms that there is a synergistic effect when two materials are co-pyrolysed and may in turn reduce the energy demand in the production of oil from oil shale