Detail heavy hydrocarbon analysis in natural gas by using GC/MS

Natural gas is a mixture of light hydrocarbons (C1 to C4) and often contains heavy hydrocarbons (C7 to C14). However, heavy liner hydrocarbons and aromatic hydrocarbons are present in natural gas. This components are present in natural gas because of wrong distillation, type of Reservoir, etc [1]. The heavy hydrocarbons in natural gas usually generate technical problems in pipe line of fuels and combustion chambers and boilers in power plants. There is great interest on qualification and quantitation of these components to resolve an issue of encounter with this problems [2]. The traditional methodology for natural gas analysis is about measuring only light hydrocarbons and there is need to analyses heavy hydrocarbon to determine the source of these kind of issues. For this purpose, we develop the technique to determine detail hydrocarbon including light and heavy compounds in Iran Niroo Research Institute for the first time. All methodologies interrogates two detectors (FID and TCD), two columns and one gas valve to analysis light and heavy hydrocarbons separately. However, both heavy and light hydrocarbons can be analyze by one column and mass detector without the need of any accessories in our developed methodology [3]. In this research, 120m DB-1 column (use 2 60m columns and connected them with a silicon connector and resin) with gas valve separation line) and MS detector are applies to detect more than 11 usual light hydrocarbons less than 30 min and 140 heavy hydrocarbons about two hours. The results of this experiment are applicable for power plants, cement units, sugarcane plants and any units that use natural gas as fuel [4].