Petroleum Products Testing

Gazulla, María Fernanda, et al. Talanta Open 6 (2022): 100134.

Petroleum coke, with its high carbon content, low volatility, and low ash content, is an excellent precursor for the preparation of high-surface-area activated carbons, and the primary use of calcined coke is the manufacture of carbon anodes. When the coke is used as an anode, the metal concentrations must be strictly controlled, as the performance of the electrode depends on the trace metal content in the petroleum coke. Therefore, a fast and accurate analytical procedure is needed to determine the micro and trace elements in petroleum coke to achieve such control.

A new, powerful, and rapid quality control method has been developed for the determination of trace concentrations of Si, Fe, V, Ni, Ca, Na, P, Al, Ti, Mg, K, Zn, Mo, Ba, and Co in raw and calcined petroleum coke. The method involves the use of single-reaction-chamber (SRC) microwave digestion of the samples followed by ICP-OES determination.

Zhang, Wenhao, et al. Spectrochimica Acta Part B: Atomic Spectroscopy 177 (2021): 106076.

The content of vanadium (V), iron (Fe), and nickel (Ni) in petroleum coke is also an important factor affecting its price. In the anode production process, there is a critical requirement for rapid elemental measurement (V, Fe, Ni) of petroleum coke to enhance process control, cut down on time, prevent wastage, and boost production efficiency.

Laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy (LIBS) has been used to determine the content of vanadium (V), iron (Fe), and nickel (Ni) in petroleum coke. This method has the advantages of simple sample pre-treatment, fast measurement, low environmental pollution, and low reagent consumption.

Dong, Chenglong, et al. Fuel 361 (2024): 130690.

Petroleum biomarkers are measurable indicators of the evolution of biological life, and are widely used by petroleum geochemists in oil exploration to find oil reserves or indicate oil maturity. Hydrocarbons are the main components of petroleum and are important biomarkers that can be used to characterize the evolution of organic matter, kerogen type, and reservoir alteration. Generally, the investigation method uses steranes and hopanes as biomarkers in source rocks and crude oils.

A strategy for identifying the homologous series based on the "seriation" of crude oil has been proposed, where "seriation" reveals the continuous composition of components naturally present in the crude oil. With the steady increase in mass-to-charge ratio (m/z), the collision cross-section (CCS) values measured by trapped ion mobility spectrometry mass spectrometry (TIMS-MS) were found to have a linear relationship with m/z. Using this linear correlation, the structures of C₂₀-C₃₄ steranes and C₂₇-C₃₈ hopanes were determined.