VALIDATION OF THE AROMATIC RING DISTRIBUTION IN DIESEL FUEL REFINERY STREAMS BY SUPERCRITICAL-FLUID CHROMATOGRAPHY AND MASS-SPECTROMETRY

In anticipation of stricter environmental mandates, a new supercritical fluid chromatographic (SFC) method has been developed to determine the aromatic Ting distribution in various diesel fuel refinery streams. Although preparative open column liquid chromatography (OCLC) followed by mass spectral (MS) quantitation is often used to determine the individual aromatic ring types, this procedure is quite time consuming and labor intensive. The SFC technique described here provides rapid, quantitative hydrocarbon analysis of the aromatic ring species without prior OCLC separation. Nearly fifty test diesel fuels, ranging from 6.0 to 48.0% (w/w) total aromatics, originating from separate refineries, have been analyzed. Excellent correlation has been established between the OCLC-MS data and the SFC results confirming the validity of this new SFC method.