High Resolution MS/MS techniques for the investigation of crude oils and its fractions

摘要

Due to diminishing conventional resources of crude oil, especially the light crudes, a larger part of the energy supply will have to be obtained from unconventional assets in the intermediate future. These unconventional resources include heavy crude oils, shale oils or the famous Canadian and Venezuelan oil sands. All these fossil materials have one thing in common: due to the high content of heteroatoms they need a chemical work-up until they can be converted into an environmentally less damaging, high quality product. Aiding this conversion process analytical chemistry can play a major role and is a necessity for optimization of the industrial processes. Therefore, analytical methods need to be developed that allow a compositional characterization, an identification of the basic structures and the isomer distribution.