Presentation Profile
StayClean™ QSight LC-MS/MS for High Throughput Analysis of Fluorinated Benzoic Acid Tracers in Water
Main Author
Sheng-Suan (Victor) Cai - PerkinElmer US, LLC
Abstract:
Fluorinated benzoic acids (FBAs), including several subgroups, are a distinct category of artificial, stable, non-radioactive tracers that are commonly used to investigate flow dynamics in geothermal, hydrothermal and oil well applications. In an oil field, FBAs are known to partition within the aqueous phase and can be monitored quantitatively between the injector and producer wells to enable quick operational decision making, with the goal of optimizing oil recovery. In this work, we developed a high throughput LC-MS/MS method for analysis of FBA tracers in water. 14 FBAs were evaluated for their relative sensitivity on column. LC separation was optimized to separate sample matrix from target analytes. Field samples from a petroleum company were analyzed and 3-FBA was detected to be approximately 10 times higher than background level in the control samples. QSight LC-MS/MS is equipped with StayClean™ Technology. The instrument has self-cleaning ability. StayClean™ hardware design allows direct injection of field water samples without cleanup, instrument cleaning and maintenance. A robustness test dataset with continuing injection of 21,700 dirty sample extracts including avocado, salmon, spice, tomato mix and dog/cat food will be presented.
