Behavior of Organic Sulfur Compounds in Flame Photometric Detectors

Abstract

Emission responses of twenty one compounds containing sulfur were examined with a flame photometric detector (FPD) using the 394 nm filter. It was found that the response to sulfur compounds (containing C1-C12) depended only on the number of sulfur atoms in a molecule and not on its chemical structure. The corrected detector response value (√Hw), which was found proportional to the sulfur concentration, is proposed for comparing the response of sulfur compounds. The effect of experimental conditions such as hydrogen, air, carrier gas flow rates, and detector temperature and the presence of hydrocarbon simultaneously eluting with the sulfur compounds on sulfur response were discussed. For comparison of the sulfur response, experimental conditions mentioned above should be kept constant. It was concluded that the optimum hydrogen and air flow rate varied with the geometry of the detector. It is always necessary to monitor hydrocarbons by the FID for accurate measurement of sulfur compounds. It was shown that quantitative determination of all types of sulfur compounds could be done easily by using one standard sulfur compound for intensity calibration.