Energy & Fuels, Vol.34, No.2, 1664-1668, 2020
Simultaneous Determination of Organic Distribution and Content in Oil Shale by Terahertz Imaging
Organics in oil shale play a significant role in the generation and production of oil gas. Visualizing the content and distribution of organics in the reservoir is the key objective of unconventional resource research. In this study, we demonstrate the application of terahertz (THz) imaging to measure the dielectric properties of oil shale from Huadian and Beipiao with different oil yields. The heterogeneous distributions of organics on the oil shale surface were evaluated by THz amplitude imaging, with the existence of kerogen-rich and kerogen-poor areas identified by different colors. Meanwhile, the average refractive indices of the samples were plotted with the oil yield, revealing a negative correlation between them. Our results prove that THz spectroscopy can provide not only a promising technique to visualize the organic distribution in oil shale but also a convenient means for the quantitative analysis of the organic content in oil shale.