Spectral signature of Egyptian crude oils

Abstract

Crude petroleum oils are complex mixtures of diverse hydrocarbons, in widely varying compositions, that originate from a variety of geological sources. Fluorescence emission spectra have been measured for two types of Egyptian crude petroleum oil, its light and heavy products over a broad range of excitation and emission wavelengths. Both types of crude oil products are characterized by spectral signatures with a differing topography: the number of fluorescent peaks, their coordinates (λex, λem) on the plane of the three dimensions spectrum, and the shape of the bands formed by the contour line density, changeable in either direction. The refined light oil shows emission spectra at λmax between 350 and 500 nm according to the excitation wavelength. The refined heavy oil shows very broad unstructured emission spectra with λmax > 400 nm. As a group, they could certainly be distinguished from the light oil samples and most of the crude oil.