Recap from GCC – VHA & Methanol in Crude Oil with GC-VUV

Hello fellow patrons of Gulf Coast Conference (GCC) or blog newcomers!  Welcome to this quick recap, covering the two presentations I gave during GCC.  Those of you who were lucky enough to endure my back-to-back presentations, kudos.  I’m glad you can stand me for an hour and hopefully, you learned something about gas chromatography – vacuum ultraviolet spectroscopy (GC-VUV).  The topics I covered were the following: (1) using GC-VUV for detailed hydrocarbon analysis (DHA), locally known as verified hydrocarbon analysis (VHA), and (2) using GC-VUV for detecting and quantifying methanol in crude oil. Below, I listed the main points from each presentation and included links to their recordings!

Verified Hydrocarbon Analysis (VHA)

• GC-VUV is a powerful technique for analyzing gasoline-range samples (ASTM D8071), including reporting mass and volume percent for carbon number, while classifying and speciating some compounds based on their absorbance spectra and retention times.
• The GC-VUV VHA method provides chromatograms and results like ASTM D6730, but in 1/3 time! Qualitative and quantitative PIONA accuracy are assured through VUV spectroscopy and hands-off VUV Analyze^TM data processing, including for up to 150 speciated compounds, covering 90% of the composition of gasoline.
• 50 Minute DHA of Gasoline with GC-VUV Spectroscopy

Methanol in Crude Oil

• Traditional methodology for methanol in crude oil uses a complicated GC set-up, requiring direct injection and backflush. This increases the risk of gunking up the GC liner and column, which leads to data accuracy issues and downtime.
• Static headspace GC-VUV uses a simple single-column (no backflush) solution that only introduces volatile compounds from crude oil, saving the GC liner and column for better uptime and throughput.
• Static headspace GC-VUV demonstrates linearity from 5 to 1,000 ppm of methanol in crude oil (comparable to current ASTM methods), has acceptable RSD% (less than 9), and shows no quantitative bias for heavy and light crude oils.
• VUV absorbance spectra for methanol and other volatile compounds are unique, meaning if compounds coelute, they can be deconvolved to maintain qualitative and quantitative accuracy.
• Using Static Headspace GC-VUV to detect Methanol in Crude Oil

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