A previous communication (I) has discussed the use of Type 13X molecular sieve in a high temperature gas-solid chromatographic process to determine the naphthenes and paraffins of a saturate petroleum distillate at each carbon number up to and including C10. The technique, however, because of interference from aromatics, is not directly applicable to the analysis of a straight run distillate of wide boiling range. The methods previously used to reduce this interference-e.g., prior dearomatization or fractionation of the distillate- are tedious and time consuming. Consequently a new approach, whereby the separation of the aromatics from the saturate hydrocarbons is achieved by the use of Type 10X molecular sieve as the adsorbent in a short precolumn, has been developed. The separation is rapid and quantitative and is demonstrated by the results obtained on a number of petroleum distillates. © 1969, American Chemical Society. All rights reserved.
