GC×GC-TOFMS/FID hydrocarbon group-type analysis of plastic-derived oils (Christina Kelly, MDCW 2024)

🎤 Presenter: Christina Kelly, Joseph Binkley, John Hayes (LECO Corporation, Saint Joseph, USA)

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💡 Book in your calendar: 16th Multidimensional Chromatography Workshop (MDCW) 3 - 5. February 2025

Abstract

An increase in the desire for waste plastics converted to pyrolysis oils to be used as fuel has led to the development of processes that create new potential feedstocks which, even with similar physical characteristics to traditional geochemical sources, carry higher risks of poisoning catalysts or otherwise reducing efficiency due to very different chemical characteristics.

This presentation focuses on characterization of plastic-derived pyrolysis oils and the comparison of polar-nonpolar and nonpolar-polar column sets that target increased chromatographic resolution in different regions of the structured chromatograms, revealing clusters of compound classes not typically seen in traditional petroleum fuels, such as multi-branched paraffins and specific heteroatom-containing species of interest.

The data provided by the LECO Paradigm Shift highlights the flexibility of this flow-modulator-and-splitter system for comprehensive two-dimensional chromatography (GC×GC) method optimization while utilizing the combined power of time-of-flight mass spectrometry (TOFMS) and simultaneous flame ionization detection (FID). With a splitter design ensuring that a constant ratio of analytes is sent to each detector throughout the GC temperature program to maintain uniform area % quantitation from the FID, the Paradigm Shift system preserves the integrity of the GC×GC separation of plastic-derived pyrolysis oils for analytical methods that concurrently provide rich qualitative and accurate quantitative information.