Discriminating crude oil grades using laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy

The analysis of crude oil using laser-based analytical techniques such as laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy (LIBS) has become of great interest to various specialists in different fields such as geology, petro-chemistry and environmental science. In this work, a detailed study is presented wherein the implementation of an efficient and simple LIBS technique to identify the elemental constituents of crude oil and to distinguish between different grades of petroleum crude oil is discussed. Laser-induced plasma (LIP) technique has been used in this work for direct measurements of atomic, ionic and molecular species in dry crude oil samples with API gravities ranging between 18 and 36. The technique was implemented using the first harmonic of a pulsed Nd-YAG laser source. Atomic and molecular emission bands were observed, consisting of characteristic spectral lines of atoms and diatomic molecular bands, namely from C, H, Si, Na, Ca, Mg, AL, Fe, Ti, Mo, C2 and CN. The intensities of high-resolution spectral lines for some atoms and molecules of elements such as Ca, Na, Fe, Mo, C2 and CN were evaluated at different wavelengths along the obtained spectra. The molecular bands and the elemental spectral lines were used to assess the possibility of adopting the LIBS technique in differentiating between crude oil samples with different American Petroleum Institute (API) gravity values. The results indicate the presence of a distinct correlation between the API gravity values of the various oil samples and the spectral line intensities of the elements and some molecular radical constituents. In addition, the possibility of identifying the API gravity values of unknown oil samples is also indicated. •LIBS proved to be reliable technique in identifying trace elements in crude oil.•A relation has been shown between API gravity value and spectral lines intensity.•The results demonstrate the possible future in situ application of LIBS.