Analysis of Phenolic Antioxidants in Navy Mobility Fuels by Gas Chromatography-Mass Spectrometry.

摘要

This study was undertaken to address the need for an improved analytical method to detect and quantify hindered phenolic antioxidant additives in Navy mobility fuels that overcomes the limitations of currently available methods. It was demonstrated that hindered phenols in fuels can be accurately quantified using capillary gas chromatography-mass spectrometry with selected ion monitoring (GC-MS-SIM) of mass fragments unique to each analyte. Using this approach, two methods were developed for the analysis of antioxidants in fuels: (1) A single column GC-MS-SIM method that, due to co- elution of fuel constituents, is only suitable for quantifying tri-t- butylphenol, and (2) a two column heart-cutting method that overcomes the problem of co-eluting fuel components, but requires modification of the instrument. The heart-cutting method was developed as a practical method for the routine determination of each of the five hindered phenolic antioxidants in any type of fuel, down to 0.05 ppm (MQL) with minimal interference from fuel. This offers a significant advantage over the traditional HPLC-ECD methods, which are more labor intensive and not capable of separating each of the individual phenolic antioxidants.