Analysis of metal ions in crude oil by reversed-phase high performance liquid chromatography using short column

In this study a rapid, simultaneous analysis of V, Ni, Fe and Cu in crude oil was achieved by high performance liquid chromatography using 10 cm length reversed-phase C18 column. Since the amount of metal ions is at a very low level, in this work, solvent extraction of metals by a ligand such as 8-hydroxyquinoline from acidic media was investigated with some modification to previous procedures. Average extraction recoveries were 99, 85, 94 and 96 for V, Ni, Fe and Cu, respectively. The proposed method was successfully applied to the crude oil which was obtained from Koshk area in southern Iran. Fast analysis of metal ion in reversed-phase short column was achieved with methanol/water (55/45, v/v) and the detection limits measured as three times the background noise were obtained. Also it was shown that if small amount of 8-hydroxyquinoline was added to the mobile phase, the peak height and the peak symmetry were improved. A typical chromatogram for the separation of the 8-hydroxyquinoline complexes of V (V), Ni (II), Fe (III) and Cu (II) in crude oil was obtained in less than 4 min.