The role of gas chromatography in compositional analyses in the petroleum industry

Because of the complex character of petroleum fractions and products, gas chromatography has played an important role as an analytical technique in this area since its introduction. For the majority of oil fractions classifying or group-type analyses are performed rather than determinations of all the individual constituents, The general composition of petroleum is discussed and also the relation between composition, product properties and processability, Compositional analyses for petroleum products are reviewed, especially in terms of multi-dimensional gas chromatography. The important role that comprehensive two-dimensional gas chromatography is expected to play in the near Future in unraveling the composition of oil fractions is also discussed. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.