Titre: New Approaches for the Separation and Detection of Sulfur-Containing Compounds
Emdroit: Pavillon Roger-Gaudry, Salle G-815
Hôte: Jean-Francois Masson
Résumé: Sulfur compounds exist in a variety of forms and concentrations in many different target areas from food and beverage additives to chemical warfare agents. In petroleum products they are often present in lubricants, crude oils, different grades of fuel and others. Since their combustion can lead to undesirable damage to engines and the environment, they are routinely analyzed as part of industrial optimization and regulatory compliance processes. While numerous methods are available for the determination of such sulfur compounds, gas chromatography with selective detection is one of the most popular of these approaches. The flame photometric detector (FPD) is a very well-known and widely used selective detector for this purpose.
However, its major limitations include the severe signal quenching that occurs from co-eluting hydrocarbons and the lack of a uniform response over a range of compounds. We have been addressing these issues through developing new analytical methods for sulfur analysis. In one area, we have introduced a novel Multi-Flame Photometric Detector that can significantly improve upon the performance of this device in several different ways and open an effective pathway to its incorporation into microfluidic GC platforms. In another, we have been developing a novel water stationary phase method that can offer much better separations of sulfur analytes within such matrices and enhance their detection by conventional FPD. This seminar will present an overview of these approaches and their operating characteristics will be discussed.
