Determination of sulfur compound distribution in petroleum by gas chromatography with a flame photometric detector

A simulated distillation using a flame photometric detector (FPD) is reported for determining the boiling range distribution of sulfur-containing compounds in middle-to-heavy petroleum distillates. Its success is based on a new calibration method for the FPD involving converting all the sulfur-containing compounds to SO/sub 2/ before detection and linearizing the data. A single calibration equation is formulated expressing a uniform and linear relationship between detector response and sulfur concentration for the various types of sulfur compounds in petroleum. Consequently, the problems of handling the detector's nonlinearity and variance of response to different sulfur compounds are eliminated. The method is quantitative and applicable to petroleum distillates with a final boiling point of 1184 /sup 0/F (640 /sup 0/C) and greater than or equal to850 ppm by weight total sulfur content.