Abstract
Characterization of petroleum-derived products is an area of continuing importance in environmental science, mainly related to fuel spills. In this study, a non-separative analytical method based on E-Nose (Electronic Nose) is presented as a rapid alternative for the characterization of several different petroleum-derived products including gasoline, diesel, aromatic solvents, and ethanol samples, which were poured onto different surfaces (wood, cork, and cotton). The working conditions about the headspace generation were 145 °C and 10 min. Mass spectroscopic data (45–200 m/z) combined with chemometric tools such as hierarchical cluster analysis (HCA), later principal component analysis (PCA), and finally linear discriminant analysis (LDA) allowed for a full discrimination of the samples. A characteristic fingerprint for each product can be used for discrimination or identification. The E-Nose can be considered as a green technique, and it is rapid and easy to use in routine analysis, thus providing a good alternative to currently used methods.
Highlights
Characterization of petroleum-derived products (PDPs) is an area of continuing importance in environmental science, for example for the identification of fuel spills [1]
A total of 39 samples were prepared using different petroleum-derived products: 3 gasoline samples with 95 research octane number purchased from 3 different local petrol stations and different brands, G1 (Repsol), G2 (Cepsa), and G3 (BP); 3 diesel samples, obtained from 3 different local petrol stations and brands, D1 (Cepsa), D2 (Shell), and D3 (Repsol); 3 commercial ethanol samples obtained from different commercial brands in local stores, E1, E2, and E3; and 3 different aromatic organic solvents common in regular laboratories, A1, A2, and A3, all of which were purchased from Panreac Química, S.A.U
An E-Nose-based method was optimized for the analysis of gasoline samples with different research octane numbers [29]
Summary
Characterization of petroleum-derived products (PDPs) is an area of continuing importance in environmental science, for example for the identification of fuel spills [1]. The application of different spectroscopic techniques—such as NIR, FT-IR, or Raman—combined with chemometric tools has been described in the literature as an alternative to chromatographic techniques [26,27,28] These spectroscopic techniques have several advantages since they are non-destructive, are easy to use, are cheap, can be applied in situ, and require limited or no sample preparation. The aim of the work described here was to develop a new method to determine the presence/absence of petroleum-derived products using fingerprints Such an approach would enable the fast and easy identification of different PDPs (gasoline, diesel, ethanol, and aromatic solvents) adhered to different surfaces (wood, cork, and cotton sheet) using an E-Nose technique combined with chemometric tools
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