ABSTRACT The enhancement of shale oil (SO) yield from oil shale (OS) has emerged as a research focus worldwide. Pyrolysis represents the principal thermochemical approach for converting OS into SO. This study aims to increase SO yield and improve its quality by employing montmorillonite (MMT) as a support to load metal salts CaCl 2 ·4H 2 O, Fe(NO 3 ) 2 ·9H 2 O, and MgCl 2 ·6H 2 O, thereby fabricating MMT‐based metal salt catalysts. The effects of these catalysts on the distribution of pyrolysis products from OS and the characteristics of the resulting liquid fuels were systematically investigated. The results demonstrate that metal salts loaded on MMT collectively enhance SO production. Among all catalyst samples examined, 20Ca‐5MMT exhibited the highest SO yield of approximately 7.26 wt.%. Furthermore, the promotional effect of MMT on aliphatic compound formation in SO establishes a comprehensive catalytic performance ranking: 20Ca‐Fe‐5MMT > 20Ca‐Mg‐5MMT > 20Fe‐Mg‐5MMT.
Ma et al. (2026) studied this question.