Samenvatting

The customers of Inspectorate ship gasoline to Asia. Due to the limitations of the ships and costs of the journey it is preferred to concentrate the gasoline. The concentrated gasoline can be blended with other “cheaper” forms of gasoline to make the required gasoline. Because of the concentrated form of gasoline the customer is able to transfer a larger amount of gasoline. This concentrated form of gasoline contains at least 65 volumetric percentages of total aromatics. Because of the demand for this kind of gasoline the customer asked Inspectorate to analyse the possibility to implement a new method capable of measuring samples containing at least 65 volumetric percentages of the total aromatics Multiple methods have been reviewed. In total five methods have been reviewed in order to determine which method is most suitable for the determination of the total aromatic content. Out of these five methods the UOP 744 appeared to meet most of the requirements. A gas chromatograph has been built build and tested according to the description of the method. A sample, that represents the matrix of the high aromatic gasoline, is tested. The repeatability of the measured sample is within the range of the method. Therefore the method has been accepted.
Helium is worldwide known as a carriergas used in the gas chromatography. Because of the wide range of applications of helium the reserve of helium is running low. Because of the limited amount of helium available the costs of helium have increased. Therefore an alternative substance should be found. At the moment two accepted alternatives are available, hydrogen and nitrogen.
Both carrier gasses have positive and negative characteristics. Hydrogen is highly explosive. Because of the combustibility the management has decided to ban hydrogen. The quality of nitrogen as a carrier gas Is not as good as the quality of helium and hydrogen. A research was started to determine the possibility of the use of nitrogen as a carrier gas for the method UOP 744. The use of nitrogen is implemented according to the method UOP 744. It has been concluded that nitrogen has no significant effect on the determination of aromatics in gasoline in comparison to helium as a carrier gas.