Presentation Profile
Characterization and Quantitative Hydrocarbon Group-Type Analysis of Plastic-Derived Pyrolysis Oils by GCxGC-TOFMS/FID
Currently Scheduled: 10/10/2023 - 1:30 PM - 1:50 PM
Room: Daffodil
Main Author
Christina Kelly - LECO Corporation
- Joe Binkley - LECO Corporation
- John Hayes - LECO Corporation
- David Borton - LECO Corporation
Abstract:
An increase in the desire for waste plastics converted to pyrolysis oils to be used as fuel has led to the development of processes that create potential feedstocks with chemical characteristics very different from traditional geochemical sources. A deeper, detailed understanding of their chemical composition is necessary to avoid problems at refineries because these nontraditional materials carry higher risks of poisoning catalysts or otherwise reducing efficiency, even though they may possess similar physical properties to traditional petroleum products. This presentation focuses on full characterization of plastic-derived pyrolysis oils throughout different stages of the production process using comprehensive two-dimensional gas chromatography (GCxGC) coupled to time-of-flight mass spectrometry (TOFMS) and simultaneous flame ionization detection (FID). For the chromatographic separation of these pyrolysis oils, GCxGC not only provides improved chromatographic resolution that leads to cleaner spectral information for identification by the full mass range TOFMS, but also structured chromatograms that reveal clusters of compound classes not typically seen in traditional petroleum fuels, such as multi-branched paraffins and heteroatom-containing species that would otherwise not be resolved by single-dimension GC separation. A novel splitter design ensures that a constant ratio of analytes is sent to each detector throughout the analysis, eliminating boiling-point temperature-biased hydrocarbon group-type results from the FID while maintaining the integrity of the GCxGC separation for an analytical method that concurrently provides rich qualitative and quantitative information.
