Uurimistöö toimub põhiliselt Nutika spetsialiseerimise programmi projekti “Põlevkivi kerogeeni dikarboksüülhapeteks töötlemise tehnoloogiline platvorm ” raames, kus uuriti uue pideva põlevkivitöötlemise tehnoloogia lähtetingimusi, eesmärgiga selgitada välja võimalusi selle juurutamiseks. 2022 alustati uut, EAS Rakendusuuringute Programmi projekti KEROX III – „Täiustatud tehnoloogiline platvorm lahustunud karboksüülfraktsiooni ja dikarboksüülhapete saamiseks põlevkivi oksüdeerimise teel“ (2022–2024). et
The research is carried out in the framework of the project “Technological Platform for Processing Oil Shale Kerogen into Dicarboxylic Acids”(Smart Specialization Program, contract LLKEE20030, KEROX II) in order to develop a continuous-flow process and initial conditions were studied for that perquisites to introduce the technology to practice. KEROX II project develops further the initial technological platform from KEROX I (Smart specialization programme,contract LEP17009, KEROX I, 2017–2019).It was shown that the oxidation of kerogen to water-soluble organic compounds can be directly used or upgraded to value-added products and should be considered as an alternative direction for improving the oil shale industry. A direct dependence of kerogen transformation on the oxidant amount at different oil shale concentrations was observed. Oil shale with the highest degree of kerogen induced the decomposition of DCAs the most. It was also shown that the amount of DCAs in the mixture of dissolved organics can be doubled by additional oxidation with nitric acid.The application of a semi-continuous process using a trickle-bed reactor did not improve the yield of dissolved organics and the method was considered unsuitable for kerogen dissolution.The results to achieve a continuous-flow process revealed the sulphuric acid can be used for pre-treatment of the raw material and as an additive to the oxidation process. The results are presented in Estonian Patent Application (Lopp,M.; Kaldas, K.; Preegel, G.; Muldma, K.; Niidu,A. Põlevkivi kerogeeni oksüdeeriva lahustamise meetod. Est. Pat. Appl. (2021), EE 2019000020A 20210215). en