Quantitation method of N,N ′‐disalicylidene‐1,2‐propanediamine by comprehensive two‐dimensional gas chromatography coupled to a nitrogen chemiluminescence detector

Metal deactivator additives (MDAs) have been used for over 60 years to prevent metal catalyzed reactions in petroleum products; a commonly used metal deactivator is N,N′‐disalicylidene‐1,2‐propanediamine. The quantitation of low MDA concentrations in fuels is challenging due to the complexity of the sample matrix. In this work, this difficulty was overcome using GC × GC hyphenated with a nitrogen chemiluminescence detector. The high resolution power of GC × GC avoided co‐elution between the MDA and other sample matrix compounds; while the enhanced sensitivity of GC × GC and the use of a nitrogen chemiluminescence detector supplied a high sensitivity and specificity for nitrogen compounds. For the analysis, the MDA additive was derivatized with the silylation agent N,O‐bis (trimethylsilyl)trifluoroacetamide at room temperature and its quantitation was based on an external calibration curve; good linear response was obtained in the 1.4–8.6 ppm range.