To determine the quality of shale oil and to optimize its applications, it is necessary to know the composition of shale oil and its group fractions, that is, the distribution between paraffins and olefins, aromatic hydrocarbons, light oxygen compounds and heavy oxygen compounds (incl. asphaltenes and maltenes). However, it has also been observed that asphaltenes and maltenes do not emit during solvent eluating, but remain at the top of the starting point of column and can't be determined in the mixture.
Authors of the invention carried out studies to find a new column chromatographic method which, under specially developed conditions, allows the use of column chromatographic adsorption method to separate crude shale oil from boiling point 170-600 °C into paraffins and olefins, aromatic hydrocarbons, light oxygen compounds and heavy oxygen compounds (incl. asphaltenes and maltenes) and to determine the complete group composition.
New method prevents the secondary reactions occurring during rectification of crude oil. In addition, it will save time and cost of analyses, as a single analysis of crude oil is sufficient instead of multi-fraction analysis.
The Oil Shale Competence Centre of Tallinn University of Technology Virumaa College defended the invention "Method of Determining the Oil Shale Group Composition" as a useful model in the Estonian Patent Office. The information is published in Estonian Utility Model gazette 9/2019.