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The sulfur compounds found in many petroleum feeds and products can corrode
equipment, inhibit or destroy the catalysts used in processing, impart undesirable odors to
products, and create emissions that damage the environment. Since sulfur concentrations
in available crude stock are increasing every year, it is becoming more and more important
to both accurately quantify and speciate those sulfur compounds during the refining
process.
Gas Chromatography with sulfur Chemiluminescence detection provides a rapid and highly
specific way to determine the types and amounts of sulfur compounds present in petroleum
products and feeds. This ability to speciate sulfur compounds is particularly important
because of the need to control sulfur compounds in liquid fuels and during the intentional
addition of odorous sulfur compounds to aid in detecting liquefied petroleum gas leaks
(LPGs). In fact, the ability to speciate sulfur compounds is frequently more important than
the ability to measure total sulfur content alone.
Flame photometric detectors (FPDs) and pulsed flame photometric detectors (PFPDs) are
far more susceptible to hydrocarbon interference. As a result, frequent column changes are
required for analysis of various hydrocarbon products by flame photometric detectors in
order to avoid serious quenching and inaccurate results.
The 355 SCD response (Figure 1) is inherently linear, equimolar and far less susceptible to
hydrocarbon interference, which eliminates the need to linearize data or to determine
separate response factors for individual sulfur compounds. Furthermore, since
hydrocarbons are virtually invisible to the 355 SCD, the coelution of hydrocarbon and sulfur
peaks does not present a problem.
Because of its linear and equimolar response, sensitivity and selectivity, the 355 SCD is
established and approved by the American Society for Testing and Materials for sulfur in
light petroleum liquids. In fact, the 355 SCD is the only detector tested for ASTM
D-5623-95 in which data was sufficient for determining method precision. (ASTM Research
Report: RR: D02-1335)
Liquefied petroleum gases (LPGs) and natural gas liquids (NGLs) can contain many
different amounts and types of sulfur compounds. Most industrial processes tend to remove
the sulfur compounds from products. But certain odorous sulfur compounds such as ethyl
mercaptan, tetrahydrothiophene, and occasionally thiophane are intentionally added to
propane. These sulfur compounds are used as warning agents in the detection of LPG
leaks. The ability to assure the quality of added odorant makes the ability to speciate sulfur
compounds in these liquids especially useful.
Learn more about the advantages of the Agilent Dual Plasma Sulfur Chemiluminescence
Detector. Then talk to your Agilent Representative about how you can gain greater
confidence in your results with the Agilent 355 SCD.
In addition, the applications discussed above are available from Agilent Technologies as
dedicated configurations with chromatographic analysis method and factory checkout. Test
runs are provided with the instrument hardware. To order these solutions please request
the SP-1 7890-0365 for ASTM D-5623, and 7890-0375 for ASTM D-5504.