title: Facile electrochemical method and corresponding automated instrument for the detection of furfural in insulation oil.
abstract: Determining the concentration of furfural contained in the insulation oil of a transformer has been established as a method to evaluate the health status of the transformer. However, the detection of furfural involves the employment of expensive instruments and/or time-consuming laboratorial operations. In this paper, we proposed a convenient electrochemical method to make the detection. The quantification of furfural was realized by extraction of furfural from oil phase to aqueous phase followed by reductive detection of furfural with differential pulse voltammetry (DPV) at a mercury electrode. This method is very sensitive and the limit of detection, corresponding to furfural contained in oil, is estimated to be 0.03 μg g(-1). Furthermore, excellent linearity can be obtained in the range of 0-10 μg g(-1). These features make the method very suitable for the determination of furfural in real situation. A fully automated instrument that can perform the operations of extraction and detection was developed, and this instrument enables the whole measurement to be finished within eight minutes. The methodology and the instrument were tested with real samples, and very favorable agreement between results obtained with this instrument and HPLC indicates that the proposed method along with instrument can be employed as a facile tool to diagnose the health status of aged transformers.
authors.affiliation: School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, South China University of Technology, Guangzhou 510640, PR China.
authors.forename: Ruili
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.affiliation: School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, South China University of Technology, Guangzhou 510640, PR China. Electronic address: cehxjchem@scut.edu.cn.
authors.forename: Xinjian
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Huang
authors.affiliation: School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, South China University of Technology, Guangzhou 510640, PR China.
authors.forename: Lishi
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Wang
keywords: Automated instrument; Differential pulse voltammetry; Furfural; Insulation oil