Presentation Profile
Analyzing Vapors over Soils Using a Microfluidic Devices and Automated Thermal Desorption (ATD)
Currently Scheduled: 10/12/2022 - 11:25 AM - 11:50 AM
Room: Tulip
Main Author
Chris Goss - InnotechAlberta
- Simone Levy - InnoTech Alberta, Alberta Innovates
- Rafal Gieleciak - Natural Resources Canada, CanmetENERGY
- Lee Marotta - PerkinElmer Inc.
Abstract:
Determination of hydrocarbon (HC) type distribution in petroleum fluids is generally done with data from two gas chromatographs (GC); one with a flame ionization detector (FID) and one with a mass spectrometer (MS). The resulting GC-MS data is then taken through calculations based on the Robinson whole oil method to determine hydrocarbon type composition in each fraction. The method reports four saturated hydrocarbon types, twelve aromatic HC types, three tiophenic and six unidentified aromatic groups and does not require a prior separation of a sample into saturates and aromatics fractions. Moreover, the above method was applied to provide the distribution of individual HC types in function of carbon atom number defined by Simulated Distillation (SimDis) in the region of interest.
The challenge was to get a hydrocarbon breakdown on volatiles in air to attain a flux rate. Initially, the maximum concentration at steady state was determined by sampling onto two sets of thermal desorption sorbent tubes one after the other and analyzed in separate runs. The flux rate experiment was not measured in a constant state, but in a changing state. Therefore, the requirement was to sample one tube and analyze it by FID and MS detectors at the same time. To accomplish this, a microfluidic devise was employed.
The method, thermal desorption and microfluidic device developments will be discussed.
