DEVELOPMENT OF METHODS TO QUALITATIVELY IDENTIFY LUBRICANTS AND OTHER NON-POLAR FUEL CONTAMINANTS

摘要

Nonpolar substances such as lubricants,greases,and hydraulic fluids can contaminate mobility fuel supplies,potentially causing fuel stability and performance problems.A method to identify and quantify those high molecular mass compounds has been previously developed in our laboratory utilizing High-Pressure Liquid Chromatography with Evaporative Light Scattering Detection (HPLC-ELSD).Small scale,initial testing have shown that the method can be successfully used for detection of the target compounds.In this work we conducted comprehensive validation of the method using multiple contaminants in several fuel backgrounds and developed dedicated analysis software.Data for over seventy potential high molecular weight contaminants was collected in a diverse array of fuel backgrounds (JP-5,JP-8,F-76,ULSD,and HRJ) and used to construct pattern recognition algorithms to map chromatograms to contaminants,contaminant categories,and mixtures of contaminants.Then a standalone software application that can apply the validated modeling framework to externally-produced UHPLC-ELSD data was developed.The results show that data modeling strategies can be used to discriminate between different categories of contaminants,and even provide estimates of the amount of compounds.The ability to detect,quantify and identify these types of materials in fuels is a critical aspect of any failure investigation that is related to fuel quality.Developed method is a simple and robust for both the detection and identification of many possible fuel contaminants without the high operating costs associated with high-end mass spectrometry instrumentation.