CHEVRON STB PROCESS

The Chevron STB process (also known as Staged Turbulent Bed Retorting
Process) is an above-ground shale oil extraction technology. It is classified as a hot
recycled solids technology.
The Chevron STB process is a hot recycled solids technology, which processes
small particles of oil shale, it was invented by Paul W. Tamm and Gordon E. Langlois in
the Chevron Research Company laboratory in Richmond, California; as a heat carrier, it
uses oil shale ash, produced by combustion of spent oil shale in the separate
combustor.
In this process, crushed oil shale is fed into the top of the retort where it is mixed
with the hot oil shale ash; the oil shale moves downward through the retort as fluidized
bed of particles. While descending, the heat is transferred from the oil shale ash to the
raw oil shale causing pyrolysis; as a result, oil shale decomposes to shale oil vapors, oil
shale gas and spent oil shale. A stripping gas is inserted from the bottom of retort,
which carries oil vapors into solids separation section; the fine particles are directed to
the combustor while oil vapors are moved to the condenser. In condenser, shale oil is
separated from water vapor and product gases. On the bottom of retort, the spent shale
is transported to combustor.
Retort
In a chemical laboratory, a retort is a device used for distillation or dry distillation
of substances. It consists of a spherical vessel with a long downward-pointing neck. The
liquid to e distilled is places in the vessel and heated. The neck act as a condenser,
allowing the vapors to condense and flow along the neck to a collection vessel placed
underneath.
In chemical industry, a retort is an airtight vessel in which substances are heated
for a chemical reaction producing gaseous products to be collected in a collection
vessel for further processing. Such industrial-scale retort are used in shale oil
extraction, the production of charcoal and in the recovery of mercury in gold mining
processes and hazardous waste. A process of heating oil shale to produce shale oil, oil
shale gas, and spent shale is commonly called retorting. Airtight vessels apply pressure
as well as heat are called autoclaves.
Chevron uses an approach called fluidized bed retorting. The chevron staged
turbulent bed (STB) oil shale retort represents a very different approach to fluidized bed
retorting from that taken by the workers at Shell and Exxon. To approach plug flow
performance in an open fluidized bed reactor requires minimizing the back-mixing
associated with circulation around rising bubbles. Also, to avoid generating shale fines
in the retort, little turbulence is desirable. For these reasons the Shell an Exxon workers
chose to avoid the turbulent bed regime. In contrast, the STB retort operates in the
turbulent flow regime and staging by restricting the flow at intervals is used to approach
plug-flow conditions for the solids. Solids move down through the STB retort against a
countercurrent of the fluidizing gas.