New Developments in Mass Spectrometry for Group-Type Analysis of Petroleum Cuts (First Part)

Abstract

Characterization of petroleum cuts constitutes a necessary stage to perfect understanding of the reaction mechanisms and to the description of the kinetics of certain refining processes such as hydrotreating or catalytic cracking. Mass spectrometry (MS), thanks to group-type quantitative analysis methods, enables to access detailed description of complex hydrocarbon mixtures such as middle distillates or heavy cuts such as vacuum distillates. But these methods are also subject to some drawbacks and we shall expose, thereunder, two examples of improvements. In a first part, the accuracy of MS quantification of thiophenic sulphured compounds in middle distillates is studied by intertechnique comparison with the results obtained by gas phase chromatography coupled to sulphur-specific detection by chemiluminescence (GC/SCD). Improving on the MS method is suggested. In the second part, a new system for introducing the sample in the spectrometer source, dedicated to group-type analysis of heavy cuts is described. Its validation, by comparison of the MS results to those of liquid chromatography (LC) as well as its performances, is exposed.