Analyser Complies with Revised Automotive Fuel Testing Method

PAC’s (USA) AC Analytical Controls Reformulyzer M4 fully complies with the recently released revision of the multi-dimensional GC method EN ISO 22854 method, “Liquid petroleum products — Determination of hydrocarbon types and oxygenates in automotive-motor gasoline and in ethanol (E85) automotive fuel -- Multidimensional gas chromatography method”, from CEN and ISO.

The main changes in this new method from the previous version are the addition of nitrogen as alternative carrier gas to helium, an update of the response factors for ethanol and ETBE, and an inclusion of a 2nd procedure that enables operators to analyse high ethanol fuels (E85) by using a dilution step. This allows the reporting of ethanol, ethers, and higher alcohols in fuels containing between 50% and 85% ethanol as this may be requested in future E85 specifications. The method is fully harmonised with the latest version of ASTM D6839,  which was published in 2013.

PAC released the Reformulyzer M4, which determines full group type analysis of gasoline and gasoline blend streams using multi-dimensional gas chromatography, in September of last year. It is the fastest and most flexible analyser on the market to combine analysis for Paraffins, Olefins, Naphthenes, Oxygenates, and Aromatics in one instrument.

“With the latest release of this method, the Reformulyzer M4 ensures our client’s compliance while also offering unique benefits. The M4 significantly reduces the total cost of ownership and increases the instrument uptime through the improved trap performance,” says David Tran, PAC Vice-President of Product Management and Marketing. “In addition, the M4 reduces analysis time by ~50% to 39 minutes while other group type analysis instruments take 75 minutes to run. This enables refineries to make timely decisions to keep their products on spec and optimise their operations. This same advantage allows independent labs to improve their capacity by almost doubling the number of samples they can process.”