Simultaneous high performance liquid chromatographic determination of vanadium, nickel, iron and copper in crude petroleum oils using bis(acetylpivalylmethane)ethylenediimine as a complexing reagent

A method is described for the simultaneous high performance liquid chromatographic (HPLC) determination of copper, iron, nickel and vanadium, based on complexation of analytes by bis(acetylpivalylmethane)ethylenediimine (H(2)APM(2)en) followed by solvent extraction and HPLC separation on a reversed-phase. C-18, 5 microm column with UV detection at 260 nm. The method has been applied to the determination of metals in crude petroleum oils collected from the South Indus Basin oil fields. The results obtained are compared with those obtained by flame atomic absorption spectrometry.