Initial Validation of a New Procedure for Determining Aromatics in Petroleum Distillates

Abstract

The analytical data from an initial validation of a new method developed for determining aromatics in distillate fuels is reported. The method applies supercritical fluid chromatography (SFC) for the liquid chromatographic separation of total saturates and total aromatics, followed by flame ionization detection. A study was conducted to determine the validity of a SFC procedure after it was proposed to the Canadian national standard writing body for its adoption as a new standard method for determining aromatics. Inter-laboratory results suggest that SFC provides reproducible data among different laboratories and these SFC data correlate well with those obtained from other methods such as fluorescent indicator adsorption (FIA), nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR), and mass spectrometry (MS).