Transcripción del resumen del autor. Equilibrium swelling of thermally pretreated kukersite oil shale has been investigated in 22 solvents and in 2 different binary mixtures to evaluate changes in the swelling behavior and solubility parameter. Swelling experiments were performed at room temperature on previously preheated samples. Variations in extent of solvent swelling as a function of the pretreatment temperature and time are shown. On the basis of swelling in high donor number solvents, kukersite oil shale shows structural relaxation before the onset of active pyrolysis. This is consistent with the behavior seen in coal pyrolysis studies on high tar yield, softening coals. The solubility parameters (Hildebrand and Hansen three-dimensional) of kerogen were tentatively determined from swelling data and found to be practically independent of the thermal pretreatment process conditions in the temperature range up to 350 °C.

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