Elemental Analysis of Crude Oils Using Microwave Plasma Atomic Emission Spectroscopy

Abstract

Trace elemental analysis using microwave-induced plasma (MP) generated by nitrogen gas was employed as an atomization and excitation source for emission spectrometric (microwave plasma atomic emission spectroscopy, MP-AES) analysis for crude oil samples. Nitrogen gas produced from air through a gas generator, and in combination with an external gas control module (EGCM) used to introduce air into the plasma, leads to a stable robust microwave-induced plasma, enough to perform the analysis of crude oil samples with different API values, sulfur (0.5−5 wt %) and nitrogen (500 −2500 mg/kg) by direct dilution in a o-xylene diluent. Excellent detection limits and spike recoveries at low and high concentration levels were determined for Ni, V, Fe, Ca, and Na in crude oil matrix. The recoveries obtained from the analysis of the three quality control (QC) test materials were within ±10% of the actual/certified values. Comparable results for Ni and V as well as the V/(V + Ni) ratio in crude oils between nitrogen plasma and conventional argon plasma such as inductively coupled plasma atomic emission spectroscopy (ICP-AES) and inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (ICP-MS) were achieved in terms of precision, relative standard deviation, and recoveries for the concentration range from 2 to 230 mg/kg.

Multivariate optimization of a procedure employing microwave-assisted digestion for the determination of nickel and vanadium in crude oil by ICP OES

“…In recent times, several analytical strategies of sample preparation have been proposed for determining metals in petroleum and its derivatives [11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21]. Flores et al have proposed various sample digestion procedures employing microwave-induced combustion for the determination of metals in crude oil and its derivatives utilizing spectroanalytical techniques [13][14][15][16][17].…”

“…Jenny et al proposed a method utilizing microwave plasma atomic emission spectrometry for the determination of nickel, vanadium, iron, calcium, and sodium in crude oil. The sample preparation was established by the dilution of the oil in o-xylene [18]. Donati et al proposed the determination of vanadium in lubricant oils using tungsten coil atomic emission spectrometry.…”

Multielements determination and metal transfer investigation in herb medicine Bupleuri Radix by inductively coupled plasma‐mass spectrometry

“…Several techniques are used for element analysis, including flame atomic absorption spectrometry (Rosa et al., 2015), differential pulse anodic stripping voltammetric techniques (Alghamdi, 2010), stripping potentiometry (Clark, Kontoudakis, Barril, Schmidtke, & Scollary, 2016), capillary zone electrophoresis (Suárez‐Luque, Mato, Huidobro, & Simal‐Lozano, 2006), inductively coupled plasma emission spectroscopy (Chung, Kim, Lee, & Kim, 2015), and microwave plasma atomic emission spectroscopy (Nelson et al., 2015). In particular, the kinetic energy discrimination (KED) in collision/reaction cell ICP‐MS is an effective technique to reduce polyatomic ion interferences (Yamada, 2015); this technique was widely used in this study to alleviate polyatomic interferences.…”

Determination of Boron, Phosphorus, and Molybdenum Content in Biosludge Samples by Microwave Plasma Atomic Emission Spectrometry (MP-AES)

“…In another study, an attempt was made to demonstrate the potential of MP-AES for environmental studies [20]. Several other studies have employed MP-AES for the determination of trace elements such as Cu, Fe, Mn, and Zn in animal feed and fertilizers [21], gasoline and ethanol [22], petroleum crude oil [23], diesel and biodiesel [24], and biofortified yeast analysis [25]. Different procedures have been proposed for determining the content of metallic species in biosludge samples [26].…”