Chromatography in the Petroleum Industry

Petroleum mixtures consist primarily of relatively unreactive complex hydrocarbons covering a wide boiling range. Such mixtures are difficult to separate by most analytical techniques, therefore the petroleum industry has for many years played a leading role in the development of chromatographic methods of analysis. Since the last book specifically concerned with chromatographic analysis of petroleum appeared 15 years ago, numerous advances have been made including developments in liquid and supercritical fluid chromatography, the advent of silica capillary columns with bonded stationary phases and the commercial availability of new selective detectors. The current book contains chapters written by experts concerning the analysis of mixtures ranging from low boiling gases to waxes and crude oils. Silica capillary columns offer excellent resolution but they cannot separate all mixtures; therefore a chapter is devoted to the powerful complementary technique of multidimensional gas chromatography. The analysis of polymers by hydrodynamic chromatography is described as is the analysis of aqueous ionic mixtures by capillary electrophoresis.
The atomic emission detector, the oxygen FID and the sulfur chemiluminescence detectors are described and a chapter is devoted to data handling. Although the volume is specifically aimed at the petroleum analyst, there is much information of general interest which should be of benefit to a very wide readership.