Abstract:Objective To study the influencing factors and mechanism of biogenic gas production in shale.Methods The shale in Yulin was chosen as the object of this study, and methanogens specifically enriched by our research team in the preliminary stage were used as functional microbiota. An orthogonal design was adopted to optimize the biogenic gas production conditions. The simulated biogenic gas production characteristics and changes in physical and chemical properties of the shale before and after gas production were comprehensively analyzed by gas chromatography (GC), X-ray diffraction (XRD), Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR), Raman spectroscopy (Ram), and nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy (NMR).Results The optimal conditions for gas production from shale were as follows: 15% inoculum, a shale particle size of less than 0.125 mm, and an incubation temperature of 35 ℃, under which a cumulative methane yield of 81.22 μmol/g shale was achieved within 50 days. Industrial and elemental analyses conducted before and after gas production revealed that methanogens consumed the organic components of shale to produce methane. XRD results indicated that the inorganic mineral components in shale also contributed to the anaerobic degradation process associated with gas production. FT-IR and Ram results showed that the organic matter in shale was mostly long-chain aliphatic hydrocarbons. During gas production, the carbonyl and ether bonds in some compounds reacted to form intermediate metabolites containing carboxyl groups. After gas production, the D and G peaks in the shale samples were not obvious, indicating that the graphitization degree and maturity of kerogen in the shale increased. In addition, NMR results confirmed that fatty alcohols or fatty amines were utilized by microorganisms in gas production.Conclusion Microorganisms can utilize the organic components of the shale to produce gas, while also consuming the inorganic mineral components. This leads to chemical structure organic components, leading to formation of smaller compounds after gas production.