The Democratic Republic of the Congo holds important reserves of oil shale which is still under geological status.Herein,the characterization and pyrolysis kinetics of type Ⅰ kerogen-rich oil shale of the western Central Kongo (CK) were investigated.X-ray diffraction,Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy and thermal analysis (TG/DTA) showed that CK oil shale exhibits a siliceous mineral matrix with a consistent organic matter rich in aliphatic chains.The pyrolysis behavior of kerogen revealed the presence of a single mass loss between 300 and 550 ℃,estimated at 12.5% and attributed to the oil production stage.Non-isothermal kinetics was performed by determining the activation energy using the iterative isoconversional model-free methods and exhibits a constant value with E=211.5 ±4.7 kJ mol-1.The most probable kinetic model describing the kerogen pyrolysis mechanism was obtained using the Coats-Redfern and Arrhenius plot methods.The results showed a unique kinetic triplet confirming the nature of kerogen,predominantly type Ⅰ and reinforcing the previously reported geochemical characteristics of the CK oil shale.Besides,the calculation of thermodynamic parameters (△H*,△S* and △G*) corresponding to the pyrolysis of type Ⅰ kerogen revealed that the process is non-spontaneous,in agreement with DTA experiments.