New Research Identifies More Sulphur, More Accurately Than Ever Before

Regulatory requirements in the petroleum market are of the upmost importance, with the content of Sulphur being under particular scrutiny. Traditionally, the analysis of crude oil has been done with ultrahigh resolution (FT-MS). This technique provides the ability to resolve very narrow mass differences, yet the analysis can take a prolonged period of time and is fairly cost prohibitive for some. Comprehensive two dimensional gas chromatography paired with high resolution time-of-flight mass spectrometry (GCxGC-HRTOFMS) eliminates these problems, opening the door to a better, more obtainable, petrochemical analysis.

The combined GCxGC-HRTOFMS technique minimises the mass spectral resolution required to distinguish key Sulphur containing compounds, providing additional sample characterisation. Full insight into this analysis through the separation of the nearly identical masses of C₃ vs SH₄ and other common mass splits in crude oil, can be found in the article, “Distinguishing the C₃ vs SH₄ Mass Split by Comprehensive Two-Dimensional Gas Chromatography High Resolution Time-of-Flight Mass Spectrometry”. Full access to this article by LECO (USA) can be found at https://ilmt.co/PL/8G6B.