Hydrocarbon group types analysis of petroleum products: A comparative evaluation of HPLC and TLC analytical performance

Four petroleum samples representing a range of hydrocarbon composition were analyzed using the HPLC and TLC-FID techniques that provided separation and quantitation of saturates, aromatics, polars (resins) and asphaltenes. The results obtained from the two methods, for residues and crude oil samples, were not comparable because these samples contain high amount of polars and asphaltenes whereas VGO shows a very good comparison between the results obtained from the two techniques because of its asphaltenes-free and low polar composition. TLC-FID separation required. a number of solvents while in HPLC, only one type of solvent was used. In TLC method, a number of samples can be. analyzed simultaneously while in HPLC, only one sample is analyzed at a time. HPLC system analyzes a large number of sample in a complete automated fashion without operator involvement while the TLC method needs more involvement and attention of the operators. In HPLC, the aromatics can be further classified based on number of rings while in TLC-FID, aromatics were detected as one peak. The reproducibility of TLC-FID analysis for individual fractions was found good.