Flame Photometric Detector The flame photometric detector was invented by Grant in

the late 1950s for measuring the aromatic hydrocarbon content of benzole. In the
manufacture of coal gas (either as a primary product from a town-gas works, or as a
byproduct from a coke oven) the gas is scrubbed with oil and the benzole recovered from
the oil by distillation. Benzole is a complex mixture of hydrocarbons, mostly aromatic, the
majority of which is benzene. The product was a very valuable anti-knock agent when
added to gasoline. Grant used hydrogen as the carrier gas and burnt the hydrogen from the
chromatography column at a small jet similar to the flame thermocouple detector or the
flame ionization detector. The light from the flame was focused on a photoelectric cell, the
output from which was electronically modified and fed to a recorder. Any aromatic burning
in the flame rendered it strongly luminous and, thus, the aromatic compounds could be
selectively identified. The response of the detector was largely qualitative but by suitable
calibration could be made quantitative.