Oil shale has constituted for a long time an economical hope for countries
that possess important reserves of these rocks and that view to use them as an energy
source substitute for petroleum.
Morocco, with estimated reserves of 93 billion tons, is increasingly looking at oil shale
as an alternative energy source. A lot of studies have concentrated on oil shale located
in Timahdit and Tarfaya, because of their high percentage of organic matter. Most of
the studies focus either on the effect of various parameters on the yield and the quality
of the oil obtained by conventional pyrolysis, or on the characterization of these oils by
different physical and chemical techniques.
This paper explores the possibility to produce new materials, starting from the
Moroccan oil shale, for different applications. More specifically, we aimed to
demonstrate that the organic fraction of the oil shale could be used as precursors of low
cost carbon fibres or graphitizable carbon, after appropriate chemical treatments
resulting in a “maturation” of this organic phase. We also showed that this organic
fraction of the Moroccan oil shale has interesting bioactive properties and that it could
be used as a source of compounds with pharmaceutical interests.
Keywords: Oil, shale, supercritical, extraction, carbon, fibers, activation, pitch,
graphitizable carbon, phenol, Raman, spectroscopy, bioactive properties,
antibacterial, cytotoxicity, DNA, valorization.
