Sulphur Analysis in Aromatic and Naphtha Hydrocarbon Stream of Petroleum Products and Crude Oil0 pages

Sulphur analysis in aromatic and Naphtha hydrocarbon
stream of petroleum products and crude oil
Bushra Dawood,
Application Coordinator
C.I. Analytics
www.cianalytics.com

Nowadays, top priority of petrochemical industries is to detect impurities at extremely
low levels to conform to stringent government regulations, protecting expensive
catalysts, and ensuring product quality. This article describes and compares different
method of analysis to quantify elemental impurities in petrochemical products. Findings
revealed that Hydrogenolysis and Rateometric Colorimetry (ASTM 4045) best suits the
application requirement of petroleum
industry.
Introduction
Crude oil is a complex mixture of different hydrocarbons that varies in appearance and composition
depending on the geographical environment. Major constituents in oil, gasoline, diesel, and a variety of
solvents are mostly hydrocarbons. Fluid catalytic cracking of petroleum fractions in oil refineries yields
three categories of crude oil: paraffinic, naphthenic and aromatic. The mixture can be separated by
distillation and gravity. Its composition consists of carbon, hydrogen, sulphur, Nitrogen, oxygen, metals
as complexes and salts.

Sulphur is the third most abundant element in crude oil and must be removed due to its corrosive
property, intolerable odour and harmful combination to sulphur dioxide (SO2) and hydrogen sulphide
(H2S). There are two types of crude oil, one that is “sour” containing high amounts of sulphur or sulphur
compounds and the second type is “sweet” containing lower sulphur amounts or sulphur compounds.
The types of sulphur that can be present in crude oil are sulphides, disulfides, mercaptans, thiophenes,
etc.
There is a highly competitive business in petroleum constituents including aromatic hydrocarbons such
as (benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene, and xylenes, also known as BTEX), polynuclear aromatic