Published:Journal of Chromatographic Science,
ISSN 0021-9665Volume
40, Number 7, August 2002, pp. 377-382
A Reactive Analytical Approach for the Estimation of Olefinic
Content in Gasoline-Range Hydrocarbons by Gas Chromatography
A.K. Punetha, U. Shanker, K. Narsimha, and T.S.R. Prasada Rao
Refining Technology Division, Indian Institute of Petroleum, Dehradun-248 005,
India
The estimation of olefinic content in conversion processes such
as the etherification of olefins in fluid catalytic cracking (FCC) gasoline
is essentially required. Gas chromatography (GC) is the well-established method
for the quantitative analysis of olefins in etherification processes. The current
state-of-the-art GC methods employing highly specific long single capillary
columns such as Petrocol-DH are being used for the analysis of gasoline-range
hydrocarbons. However, the method needs many standard reference samples of respective
components in a complex mixture of hydrocarbons, which limits the scope of the
analytical method. The alternative approach followed by this investigation is
based on the reactive method of the analysis of olefins in FCC light gasoline
by subjecting them to hydrogenation and estimating the olefinic content by GC
comparing the gas chromatograms of the original feed and hydrogenated product
using a Petrocol-DH column. A decrease in the quantity and disappearances of
the peaks are assumed as olefins, and their number and total composition is
calculated. In this study the bromine number method is used to estimate the
olefinic content for a comparison of results with the adopted proposed methodology.
The adopted methodology quantitates olefinic content in FCC light gasoline,
which is comparable with reported literature values and the bromine number method.
With the availability of standard reference samples of some important major
reactive olefins, the adopted methodology can also give component-wise analysis
as well as total olefinic content in a single step in processes such as etherification.
The methodology can be also useful in reactions in which the conversion of total
olefinic content is needed such as hydration, esterification, and alkylation
of olefins in a complex mixture of hydrocarbons apart from the etherification
of olefins in FCC gasoline.
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