Liquid Chromatography Applications for the Oil and Gas Industry

This chapter focuses on the liquid chromatography (LC) techniques used in the petroleum industry. It provides a brief introduction into the basic principles of LC, LC hyphenated with mass spectrometry (LC‐MS), and two‐dimensional liquid chromatography (2D‐LC). The chapter provides an overview of contemporary LC techniques for samples related to oil, refining, and wastewater encountered in the oil and petrochemical industries. Group‐type separation is commonly used to analyze quantitatively or to preparatively obtain specific fractions of oil or refined products, such as fractions containing aromatics, resins, or saturates. Besides separating petroleum samples into different hydrocarbon groups, molecular‐weight distributions of petroleum samples or fractions can be determined. This can be achieved with size‐exclusion chromatography, which separates compounds based on the hydrodynamic volume. The chapter also describes how LC can be used as a pre‐separation technique for gas chromatography analysis.