Part per billion levels of copper can have a profoundly negative impact on the thermal stability of aviation turbine engine fuels. Fuels used in shipboard applications by the United States Navy acquire copper due to the prevalence of copper-nickel piping used in fuel distribution systems on both supply and combatant vessels.<br/>Graphite furnace atomic absorption (GFAA) spectrometry is the classical method for the measurement of copper in fuels as embodied in the standard method ASTM D6732. The method suffers from a small linear range of less than 100 µg/kg, which can lead to samples being diluted several times when their copper content is relatively high.<br/>In this work, an inductively coupled plasma tandem mass spectrometric (ICP-MS/MS) method was developed for the measurement of µg/kg levels of copper in aviation turbine engine fuel. The method has a wide linear range and detection limits that are superior to GFAA. ICP-MS/MS offers high quality results with a minimum need to re-measure samples following dilution.

Measurement of copper in aviation turbine engine fuel by inductively coupled plasma tandem mass spectrometry and comparison to graphite furnace atomic absorption spectrometry

253rd National Meeting (2017)

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