Advances in Quantitative Analysis of Heavy Petroleum Fractions by Liquid Chromatography−High-Temperature Comprehensive Two-Dimensional Gas Chromatography: Breakthrough for Conversion Processes

The implementation of high-temperature two-dimensional gas chromatography (HT-2D-GC) represents an important advance for heavy petroleum fraction analysis. Offline liquid chromatography (LC) separation before HT-2D-GC was applied to different vacuum gas oils (VGOs); results were in agreement with those obtained from reference methods. These conditions allowed for an extended quantification of heavy saturated compounds, including iso-paraffins and naphthenes. Weight distributions by carbon atoms number and chemical structures could be built for VGO cuts thanks to this innovative separation. These breakthrough progresses for the characterization of heavy petroleum fractions represent utterly new data to study conversion processes (including coking and hydrotreatment/hydrocracking) and to improve kinetic models, which could be based on actual chemical composition.