Ambient ionisation mass spectrometry for petroleum applications

With the introduction of Direct Analysis in Real Time (DART®), JEOL expanded mass spectrometry’s horizons, providing the ability to immediately determine chemical composition of a wide variety of samples with little or no sample preparation. JEOL’s AccuTOFTM-DART® 4G mass spectrometer offers unique analytical advantages as the “Ambient Ionization ToolboxTM” that is now relied on in a wide variety of fields, from forensics to analysis of crude extracts, contaminants, polymers and adhesives, sticky liquids, vapours, and more.

For petroleum applications, the AccuTOF-DART has been shown to rapidly identify lubricant additives in motor oils in the DART gas stream, and also to characterise the base oil composition when the ion source is operated in negative ion mode.

In this way, the AccuTOF-DART offers complementary ambient ionisation techniques that can be easily carried out without requiring any hardware changes. This makes it possible to carry out unique ambient ionisation experiments that are not practical on other mass spectrometers and produces clean, reproducible, easy-to-interpret data.