title: Rapid determination of total sulfur in fuels using gas chromatography with atomic emission detection.
abstract: The purpose of this study is to determine whether gas chromatography (GC)-atomic emission detection (AED) can be used in a low-resolution mode for rapid, accurate determinations of total sulfur in fuels at trace levels to complement other popular methods of total sulfur analysis. A method for the rapid determination of total sulfur in fuels (called "fast GC-AED") is developed. The method is tested on gasoline, jet fuel, kerosene, and diesel fuel with sulfur concentrations ranging from 125 mg/L down to 2.5 mg/L. Fast GC-AED shows better performance than traditional GC-AED for total sulfur determinations, especially for complex mixtures containing many different sulfur-containing compounds at trace levels. This method also shows that GC-AED can be used for both rapid determinations of total sulfur and traditional determinations of speciated sulfur without requiring equipment changes. Fast GC-AED is competitive with other popular methods for sulfur analysis. The 5-min program that is developed for fast GC-AED is comparable with the time scale of other methods, such as wavelength dispersive X-ray fluorescence and UV-fluorescence (2 to 5 min). Fast GC-AED also compares favorably with UV-fluorescence for trace sulfur determinations, demonstrating accuracy down to 2.5-mg/L sulfur.
authors.affiliation: U.S. Department of Energy, National Energy Technology Laboratory, Pittsburgh, PA 15236, USA.
authors.forename: Dirk D
authors.initials: DD
authors.lastname: Link
authors.forename: John P
authors.initials: JP
authors.lastname: Baltrus
authors.forename: Kurt S
authors.initials: KS
authors.lastname: Rothenberger
authors.forename: Paul
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Zandhuis
authors.forename: Donald
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Minus
authors.forename: Richard C
authors.initials: RC
authors.lastname: Striebich