Journal of Analytical Sciences, Methods and Instrumentation, 2015, 5, 35-43 Published Online September 2015 in SciRes. http://www.scirp.org/journal/jasmi http://dx.doi.org/10.4236/jasmi.2015.53004 How to cite this paper: Alnawafleh, H.M. and Fraige, F.Y. (2015) Shale Oil Solvent Extraction of Central Jordan El-Lajjun Oil Shale. Journal of Analytical Sciences, Methods and Instrumentation, 5, 35-43. http://dx.doi.org/10.4236/jasmi.2015.53004 Shale Oil Solvent Extraction of Central Jordan El-Lajjun Oil Shale Hani M. Alnawafleh 1,2* , Feras Y. Fraige 1,3 1 Faculty of Engineering, Al-Hussein Bin Talal University, Ma’an, Jordan 2 Faculty of Engineering, Tafila Technical University, Tafila, Jordan 3 Faculty of Engineering, King Saud University, Al-Muzahmiayah Branch, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia Email: * hanialnawafleh@ahu.edu.jo , hani1995@yahoo.com Received 31 July 2015; accepted 29 August 2015; published 2 September 2015 Copyright © 2015 by authors and Scientific Research Publishing Inc. This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution International License (CC BY). http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Abstract The extraction of the organic matter (OM) from oil shale (OS) can be achieved by several pro- cessing techniques. Normally, these techniques can remove high proportion of the organic materi- al contained in oil shale. In this work, organic solvents extraction experiments were implemented to investigate the effect of various parameters on Jordanian El-Lajjun oil shale extractability. Re- sults indicate that the approximate organic matter content in studied El-Lajjun oil shale is 17.48%, and 75% of OS sample particles diameters are less than 270 μm. The grain size has minor effect on shale oil extraction via organic solvents. Among eleven solvents used, the highest yield is obtained via the tetrahedrofuran (THF), whereas, with the use of solvent mixtures, the highest bitumen yield is obtained through the mixture of THF and toluene. The solvation variability is related to mode of extraction and various physicochemical factors such as extraction temperature, pressure, solvent type and mixing time, which result in different OM yield. The results indicate that the sol- vent extraction could be potential for shale oil extraction from Jordanian El-Lajjun OS under cer- tain conditions of temperature, pressure and solvent type used. Keywords Oil Shale, Organic Matter, Bitumen, Solvent Extraction, El-Lajjun, Jordan 1. Introduction Oil shale (OS) deposits are widely distributed in the world. Oil shales are sedimentary rocks contain hydrogen rich organic matter (OM) that is known as kerogen and bitumen [1]. Kerogen is OM that has not gone through * Corresponding author.