Oil shale is a valuable natural resource of oil. The United States has only 5% of the known world reserves of recoverable crude oil and about 73% of the known world reserves of recoverable oil shale. Before there can be full-scale commercial development of oil shale, the problems associated with the large amounts of wastes generated by the processing of the shale must be solved. The wastes have a complex chemical matrix. It is felt that the spent shale can be used as a sorbent to either treat or pretreat the contaminated process waters or could be codisposed with the process waters, Quite extensive work has been done in exploring this alternative with respect to inorganic constituents, but that with organic constituents has been mainly restricted to the measurement of total organic carbon. This study was done to base the analysis of the suitability of the spent shale as a sorbent upon individual compounds so that a more fundamental understanding could be obtained as to how families of compounds behave. / Ph. D.

Shale oil is an attractive, alternative fuel source for a world in which there is an increasing demand for energy. However, it is necessary to assess the environmental impacts of the shale oil industry before widescale production is begun. Diversity of retorting processes, the subsequent variability in waste products and the possible waste management schemes makes assessment of these impacts complicated. Waste treatment and disposal are areas which must be researched thoroughly. To properly evaluate the environmental risks associated with the disposal of processed shales and process wastewaters, an appreciation for the sorption/desorption (S/D) characteristics of oil shales is required. The overall objective of this research was to evaluate the S/D capacity of four types of shale: Antrim (spent, eastern shale), Anvil (raw, western shale), Oxy 6 and Run 16 (spent, western shales). Batch and continuous-flow, column experiments were performed in which the S/D behavior of five cations (As, Ca, Cd, Fe, and K) and three anions (F, SO₄, and HCO₃/CO₃) was monitored. The conductivity, redox potential, and pH of the eluent fluids were also determined. This study showed that retort temperature and porosity of the various shales had a significant effect an their S/D characteristics. Batch elution trials with spent shales produced eluents having a characteristic pH in the range 8.5 to 11.5. In these experiments, the shales retorted at lower temperatures (660°C and 793°C) released higher levels of Ca, K, and SO₄ than did a higher temperature, retorted shale (800 to 1000°C) and raw shale. The shales retorted at lower temperatures also had the highest porosities of the four shales and exhibited a greater capacity for sorption of As and F than did the other shales. Continuous-flow, elution trials showed that most inorganics monitored were flushed from the columns of shale in the first 5 to 8 pore volumes of effluent. / Master of Science