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Title: Comprehensive Chemical Characterization of Hydrocarbons in NIST Standard Reference Material 2779 Gulf of Mexico Crude Oil

Journal Article · · Environmental Science and Technology
 [1];  [2];  [3];  [4];  [5];  [6]
  1. Univ. of California, Berkeley, CA (United States). Dept. of Environmental Science; Aerosol Dynamics, Inc., Berkeley, CA (United States); National Physical Lab. (NPL), Teddington (United Kingdom)
  2. Univ. of California, Berkeley, CA (United States). Dept. of Environmental Science
  3. Univ. of California, Berkeley, CA (United States). Dept. of Environmental Science; Massachusetts Inst. of Technology (MIT), Cambridge, MA (United States). Dept. of Civil and Environmental Engineering
  4. Univ. of California, Berkeley, CA (United States). Dept. of Environmental Science; Univ. of Toronto, ON (Canada). Dept. of Chemical Engineering and Applied Chemistry
  5. Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States). Chemical Sciences Division
  6. Univ. of California, Berkeley, CA (United States). Dept. of Environmental Science and Dept. of Civil and Environmental Engineering
+ Show Author Affiliations

Comprehensive chemical information is needed to understand the environmental fate and impact of hydrocarbons released during oil spills. However, chemical information remains incomplete because of the limitations of current analytical techniques and the inherent chemical complexity of crude oils. In this study, gas chromatography (GC)-amenable C9-C33 hydrocarbons were comprehensively characterized from the National Institute of Standards and Technology Standard Reference Material (NIST SRM) 2779 Gulf of Mexico crude oil by GC coupled to vacuum ultraviolet photoionization mass spectrometry (GC/VUV-MS), with a mass balance of 68 ± 22%. This technique overcomes one important limitation faced by traditional GC and even comprehensive 2D gas chromatography (GC×GC): the necessity for individual compounds to be chromatographically resolved from one another in order to be characterized. VUV photoionization minimizes fragmentation of the molecular ions, facilitating the characterization of the observed hydrocarbons as a function of molecular weight (carbon number, NC), structure (number of double bond equivalents, NDBE), and mass fraction (mg kg-1), which represent important metrics for understanding their fate and environmental impacts. Linear alkanes (8 ± 1%), bran ched alkanes (11 ± 2%), and cycloalkanes (37 ± 12%) dominated the mass with the largest contribution from cycloalkanes containing one or two rings and one or more alkyl side chains (27 ± 9%). Linearity and good agreement with previous work for a subset of >100 components and for the sum of compound classes provided confidence in our measurements and represents the first independent assessment of our analytical approach and calibration methodology. Another crude oil collected from the Marlin platform (35 km northeast of the Macondo well) was shown to be chemically identical within experimental errors to NIST SRM 2779, demonstrating that Marlin crude is an appropriate surrogate oil for researchers conducting laboratory research into impacts of the DeepWater Horizon disaster.

Research Organization:
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE Office of Science (SC), Basic Energy Sciences (BES) (SC-22); Gulf of Mexico Research Initiative (GoMRI) and Gulf Integrated Spill Response (GISR) Consortium; National Science Foundation (NSF)
Grant/Contract Number:
AC02-05CH11231
OSTI ID:
1454441
Journal Information:
Environmental Science and Technology, Journal Name: Environmental Science and Technology Journal Issue: 22 Vol. 49; ISSN 0013-936X
Publisher:
American Chemical Society (ACS)Copyright Statement
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English

References (33)

Dataset for: "Comprehensive composition of hydrocarbons in National Institute of Standards and Technology Standard Reference Material 2779 Gulf of Mexico crude oil" dataset January 2015
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Cited By (5)

Cauliflower-like Nickel with Polar Ni(OH)2/NiOxFy Shell To Decorate Copper Meshes for Efficient Oil/Water Separation journal November 2019
Recent advances in the application of 2-dimensional gas chromatography with soft and hard ionisation time-of-flight mass spectrometry in environmental analysis journal January 2016
Mesocosm experiments to better understand hydrocarbon half-lives for oil and oil dispersant mixtures journal January 2020
Mapping and quantifying isomer sets of hydrocarbons ( ≥  C12) in diesel exhaust, lubricating oil and diesel fuel samples using GC  ×  GC-ToF-MS journal January 2018
Sensitive detection of n -alkanes using a mixed ionization mode proton-transfer-reaction mass spectrometer journal January 2016

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Related Subjects

02 PETROLEUM
37 INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CHEMISTRY
Deepwater Horizon disaster
GC/VUV-MS
NIST SRM 2779
chemical composition
crude oil
surrogate