GB407360A - Improvements in or relating to the extraction of oil from solid fuels, shales, torbanites and the like - Google Patents

Abstract

Stable dispersions of coal, shale, torbanite, or like carbonaceous material in mineral or coal oils are obtained by agitating the finely powdered solid with the oil and up to 5 per cent of a non-aqueous wetting or peptizing agent, and digesting in a closed vessel at 300--370 DEG C. and pressure up to 50 atmos. The dispersion may be coked to form smokeless fuel, or diluted with light Diesel or fuel oil for use as "colloidal" fuel, or destructively distilled as by the process described in Specification 393,602, or used to stabilize more carbonaceous solid in oil, or it may be distilled and the higher boiling fractions used as wetting and peptizing agent for further oil and coal; or the dispersion may be separated into its solid and liquid constituents, as by filtering or centrifuging, maybe after dilution with a light oil fraction. Preferably the dispersing oil contains only little material boiling below 280 DEG C. Wetting and peptizing agents specified are: hydroxy-derivatives of hydrocarbons soluble in alkali and the oil, e.g. phenol; a higher phenol or anthracene green oil; rubber latex dehydrated and suspended in benzene or other non-aqueous medium; oil-soluble organic acids, e.g. oleic; a 10 per cent solution in mineral oil of dehydrated tar from which the light and middle fractions have been removed. In one example, coal ground so that 90 per cent passes a 200 mesh sieve (1 M.M.) is mixed with 15 per cent of fuel oil residuum rich in aromatics and low in paraffins, 2 per cent of oleic acid dissolved in benzene or solvent naphtha is added, and the whole digested for 15 min. at 300--370 DEG C. and 50 atmos. pressure. After digestion there is added to the mixture 30 per cent of its weight of kerosene or gas oil, and the solids are removed by centrifuging or filtration. Specifications 323,733 and 309,229, [both in Class 32], also are referred to.