Crude Oil Characterisation by GPC-UV: New Air-transportable Liquid Chromatograph with UV Detector

The miniaturisation and the strengthening of laboratory-based analytical instruments and methods to the field is a major effort in instrument development. To reach this goal, researchers and companies from various fields have made significant progress within a variety of technologies. For some applications, the transportation of samples (unstable or difficult to ship) is a significant problem. GPC is widely used in the crude oil industry to characterise samples.

Chromatotec has developed a new and transportable GPC-UV that provides accurate analysis of seven samples. The transportable system operates in isocratic elution mode (200 µl/min and 20 bars) with columns heated to 35°C. The system is standalone, robust and transportable on airplanes since its total weight is less than 20 kg (each suitcase).  The liquid consumption for this application is only 200 µl/min. The system is fully controlled by custom electronics and software, which ensures data acquisitions, storage, processing and data transfer (Modbus, Profibus, 4-20 mA).

The transportable system offers the possibility of using different columns with pressure ranging from 10 to 400 bars and flow ranging from 0.50 to 10 ml/min. The temperature of the oven can be set up to 100°C. In addition, different detectors can be added to the system for other applications.

Chromatotec® has been selected by TOTAL for the design and manufacturing of customised chromatographic analytical solutions.