APPLIED SPECTRA INC — Department of Energy SBIR Phase II: 09a

Description

Chemical composition of feedstock petroleum affects the refining methods to produce fuels and other products.Intermediate and final refinery products as well as petrochemical products must be analyzed to meet regulations, required specifications and to provide certificates.Today petroleum refinery management requires analyzing the collected data hourly as opposite to monthly analysis used in the pre-existing practice.Refineries buy crude oil on the open market and it is received daily or even hourly.Traditional chemical analysis is based on a large multitude of standard methods but they are slow, laborious, expensive, and each of them is suitable only for one or very few elements.The multi-element analysis can be performed by ICP-OES, but it requires acidic digestion of samples, an evacuated spectrometer with a pump, a flow of high-purity argon, quartz/glassware and other consumables.Sample preparation takes long time.Acids are costly and dangerous, thus require personnel safety training, drills and emergency proceedings.Hazardous chemical waste must be disposed after the ICP measurement.Advanced data collection and real-time analysis are pursued because it will reduce cost, improve efficiency, and enhance safety without huge capital outlays for refineries.We have developed an alpha-prototype LIBS (laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy) instrument for rapid chemical analysis without ashing, dissolving, diluting or desolvating the samples, directly in nitrogen flow.We use instantaneous laser ablation of the aspirated petroleum aerosol.LIBS yields real-time information on chemical composition.The speed and ease of operation of the LIBS analysis cannot be matched by any other available technology.This will enable precisely controlled processes by monitoring chemical data at various stages of refining.This is a "green" technology that utilizes low power (<400W), does not require consumables and generates no waste.The developed LIBS prototype demonstrated rapid measurements of the major, minor and trace elements in various petroleum materials (crude oils, mineral paraffin oils, fresh and used motor oils, diesel, gasoline, kerosene, organic solvents, lubricants, asphaltenes, polyethylene, catalysts).To develop a ruggedized next-level multi-purpose LIBS prototype for refineries as a fully characterized and certified cost-effective analyzer tested at the real refinery facilities.Further development and commercialization of our compact LIBS instrument capable of instantly analyzing both liquid (any boiling point or viscosity) and solid samples of any composition.Benefits of this technique are rapid and direct chemical analysis without dissolution and/or deep evacuation of samples (as currently required).High-volume refinery business created a demand for real-time metrology and analysis.Our technology substantially shortens the time for analysis.It will enable prompt (automatic) decisions for the refining process control and optimization.A single LIBS instrument can analyze all types of samples at lower cost of operation than the current cost.Public Benefits.We will provide a crucial tool to improve efficiency and quality of the refinery manufacturing.It will be useful in many other fields where rapid chemical analysis is necessary.It is a less expensive and "green" alternative to the present-day acidic digestion analytical technologies.LIBS is portable but sensitive, and has the potential of revolutionizing chemical analysis industry similar to what the laptop has done for computing.