Flash Distillation Method and Its Application for Analysis of Petroleum Fuels

There exists a need in the petroleum area for a method to determine the nonvolatile components of petroleum fuels, gasoline, distillates, and fuel oil, without alteration of these components. In the present study this objective was accomplished by developing a new laboratory method. In this method the fuel is evaporated under high vacuum at moderate temperatures by using a short-path laboratory rotating evaporator. The method was applied to the analysis of gasoline, detergent additive in gasoline, and heavy petroleum bottoms contaminants in diesel fuel. In the latter example the method demonstrated a significant correlation between the amount of the heavy nonvolatile component and the absorption of diesel fuel in the visible region of spectrum. (Author)