RAPID IDENTIFICATION OF PETROLEUM PRODUCTS BY NEAR-INFRARED SPECTROSCOPY

Hoeil Chung,* Hyuk-Jin Choi, and Min-Sik KuNIR Project Team, SK Corporation 110 Nam-Gu, Kosa-Dong, Ulsan 680-130, KoreaReceived April 29, 1999Near-infrared (NIR) spectroscopy has been successfully utilized for the rapid identification of six typical pe-troleum products such as light straight-run (LSR), naphtha, kerosine, light gas oil (LGO), gasoline, and diesel.The spectral features of each product were reasonably differentiated in the NIR region, and the spectral differ-ences provided enough qualitative spectral information for discrimination. For discrimination, principal com-ponent analysis (PCA) combined with Mahalanobis distance was used to identify each petroleum product fromNIR spectra. The results showed that each product was accurately identified with an accuracy over 95%. Mostnoticeably, LSR, kerosine, gasoline, and diesel samples were predicted with identification accuracy of 99%.The overall results ensure that a portable NIR instrument combined with a multivariate qualitative discrimina-tion method can be efficiently utilized for rapid and simple identification of petroleum products. This is espe-cially important when local at-site measurements are necessary, such as accidental petroleum leakage andregulation of illegal product blending.IntroductionPetroleum products such as diesel and naphtha are impor-tant products in a humans daily life, as they have played acritical role in many industries as an energy and petrochemi-cal source. There are several different petroleum productsfor diverse usage based on their physical and chemical prop-erties.