In order to obtain petroleum products in agreement with environmental and industrial specifications, refining and purification processes are heavily used to eliminate various pollutant. In order to fulfill these needs, intensive studies have been dedicated to trace and ultra trace metals determination in petroleum products in the recent years. The existence of metals in fossil fuels was first established by Alfred Treibs in the 1930s. Trace metals are incorporated into petroleum fractions as organometallic compounds (e.g. geoporphyrins) initially present in the crude oil or added during the various processes of refining, but also as inorganic components originating from formation and production of water (e.g. contamination of Ba and As), and mineral matter (e.g. trace elements in clay minerals). Their concentration are always in the mg/kg or even µg/kg levels but low levels of certain metals can have drastic effects as a contaminant. The inherent high sensitivity of ICP-MS detection together with isotopic ratio capabilities opens new fields of applications in petrochemistry or geochemistry of petroleum products, but the introduction of organic substances is not that easy as this technique was not initially designed for organic samples analysis and specific configuration of sample introduction systems are required in order to minimize organic solvent load into the ICP plasma. Moreover, specific polyatomic interferences are disturbing the spectra due to the massive presence of carbon and oxygen within the plasma. These interferences are solved with the use of a collision/reaction chamber or the use of high resolution ICP/MS.<br/>The recent commercialization of a triple quad ICP/MS by Agilent, specifically dedicated for heavy matrices analysis might be an interesting alternative to solve polyatomic interferences with petroleum fractions and attain lower detection limit.<br/>This contribution will present the result obtained with such a system in term of sensitivities in organic media, but also the use of total consumption nebulizer in order to limit matrix effect due to petroleum fractions.

Recent improvements of the ICP/MS capabilities of the 8800 for the petroleum industry

253rd National Meeting (2017)

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