DUAL CHANNEL LABORATORY GAS CHROMATOGRAPHIC SYSTEM FOR THE DETERMINATION OF LOW LEVEL SULFUR IN HYDROCARBON GASES

摘要

This paper describes a novel application for separating and quantifying trace sulfur compounds in gaseous fuels using a dual channel gas chromatograph with two enhanced flame photometric detectors (FPD's) and two very different GC columns. Flame photometric detectors are susceptible to hydrocarbon quenching, which occurs when a sulfur compound of interest co-elutes with a light hydrocarbon compound such as, propane or propylene. This results in either a reduction in signal or, in some cases, a complete loss of signal for the sulfur compound. Numerous attempts have been made to mitigate this quenching affect by modifying the basic design of the FPD. In contrast, this application simply bypassed the quenching affect by separating the sulfur compounds from the hydrocarbon compounds selectively and simultaneously on two different columns. Finally, phosphine and arsine were investigated since they are common contaminants in polymer grade ethylene and propylene.