S. Fisher, R. Alexander, L. Ellis
Oct 1, 1996
Citations
1
Influential Citations
26
Citations
Journal
Polycyclic Aromatic Compounds
Abstract
Abstract Dimethylphenanthrenes (DMPs) occur as complex mixtures in crude oils and sedimentary rock extracts. Conventionally these mixtures are analysed using gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS) employing a column with a medium polarity stationary phase. Under these conditions, complete resolution of the mixture is not achieved and several isomers co-elute. Furthermore, the mass spectra of these co-eluting isomers may be so similar that one is unable to differentiate between them, and their abundance may therefore not be determined. In this paper, we describe the application of GC-FTIR as a complementary technique to GC-MS in the analysis of three co-eluting DMP isomers. Since each isomer has a unique infrared spectrum, the proportion of each in the mixture was determined by comparing the spectrum of the co-eluting compounds with the spectrum of each of the isomers. The result of this analysis was confirmed by the use of mordenite molecular sieves to separate the mixture into simpler fractions, an...