Author(s)

Atiya Al-Zuheri¹, Haider Rashad¹, Ali A. Al Maliki¹, Hussain M. Hussain², Nadhir Al-Ansari³

¹Ministry of Science and Technology, Baghdad, Iraq.
²Remote Sensing Center, University of Kufa, Najaf, Iraq.
³Lulea University of Technology, Lulea, Sweden.

The global impact of shale oil has revolutionized the world’s energy markets, resulting in significantly lower oil prices, higher global gross domestic product, changing geopolitics and shifted business models for oil and gas companies. Further and developed research initiative is required to fill critical gaps in knowledge at the interface of shale oil development along with environmental protection, so countries can prepare better for its energy future. This paper explores the characterization of Iraqi originated oil shale using various analytical techniques, such as mass spectrometry (MS), infrared spectroscopy (IR), and Gas Chromatography Mass Spectrography (GC/MS). Based upon analytical results, it is found that the majority of chemical structure is in aliphatic hydrocarbon forms.

Oil Shale, MS, IR, GC/MS, Characterization

Al-Zuheri, A. , Rashad, H. , Al Maliki, A. , Hussain, H. and Al-Ansari, N. (2018) Determination of the Chemical Structure of the Iraqi Oil Shale and Its Hydrocarbon Forms. Engineering, 10, 7-20. doi: 10.4236/eng.2018.101002.