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shale oil


n.

A crude oil that is obtained from oil shale by heating and distillation.


 
 
Britannica Concise Encyclopedia: shale oil

Synthetic crude oil that is extracted from oil shale by pyrolysis, or destructive distillation. The oil obtained from oil shale cannot be refined by the methods that have been developed for crude oil, however, because shale oil is low in hydrogen and contains large amounts of nitrogen and sulfur compounds. To be made usable, shale oil must be hydrogenated and then chemically treated to remove the nitrogen and sulfur, a process too expensive to make shale oil commercially competitive with crude oil. See also kerogen, petroleum.

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WordNet: shale oil
Note: click on a word meaning below to see its connections and related words.

The noun has one meaning:

Meaning #1: oil extracted from oil shale by heating

 
 

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Dictionary. The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition Copyright © 2007, 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Updated in 2007. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.  Read more
Britannica Concise Encyclopedia. Britannica Concise Encyclopedia. © 2006 Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. All rights reserved.  Read more
WordNet. WordNet 1.7.1 Copyright © 2001 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.  Read more

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