The coupling of supercritical fluid chromatography and field ionization time-of-flight high-resolution mass spectrometry for rapid and quantitative analysis of petroleum middle distillates

Eur. J. Mass Spectrom. 10, 187–196 (2004)
DOI: 10.1255/ejms.596

The coupling of supercritical fluid chromatography and field ionization time-of-flight high-resolution mass spectrometry for rapid and quantitative analysis of petroleum middle distillates

Kuangnan Qian,^* John W. Diehl, Gary J. Dechert and Frank P. DiSanzo
ExxonMobil Research and Engineering Company, 1545 Route 22 East, Annandale, NJ 08502, USA

ABSTRACT:

We report the first coupling of supercritical fluid chromatography (SFC) with field ionization time-of- flight high-resolution mass spectrometry (FI-ToF HRMS), in parallel with ultraviolet (UV) detection and flame ionization detection (FID), for rapid and quantitative analysis of petroleum middle distillates. SFC separates petroleum middle distillates into saturates and 1- to 3-ring aromatics. FI generates molecular ions for hydrocarbon species eluted from the SFC. The high resolution and exact mass measurements by ToF mass spectrometry provide elemental compositions of the molecules in the petroleum product. The amounts of saturates and aromatic ring types were quantified using the parallel SFC-FID assisted by SFC-UV. With a proper carbon–number calibration, the detailed composition of the petroleum middle distillate was rapidly determined.

Keywords: supercritical fluid chromatography (SFC), field ionization (FI), time-of-flight mass spectrometry (ToF-MS), petroleum distillates

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