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Updated: Jun 18, 2026

Chemical Analysis of Water-accommodated Fractions of Crude Oil Spills Using TIMS-FT-ICR MS
Published on: March 3, 2017
Petroleum crude oil characterization by IMS-MS and FTICR MS
Francisco A Fernandez-Lima1, Christopher Becker, Amy M McKenna
1Department of Chemistry, Texas A&M University, College Station, Texas 77843, USA.
Abstract:
Here, complementary ion mobility/mass spectrometry (IM/MS) and ultrahigh-resolution Fourier transform ion cyclotron resonance (FTICR) MS analyses of light, medium, and heavy petroleum crude oils yielded distributions of the heteroatom-containing hydrocarbons, as well as multiple conformational classes. The IM/MS technique provides unique fingerprints for fast identification of signature conformational/compositional patterns, whereas FTICR MS analysis provides comprehensive heteroatom class distributions. IM/MS and FTICR MS results reveal an increase in compositional complexity in proceeding from light to medium to heavy crude oils. Inspection of the mobility results shows a high structural diversity for the C(n)H(h)XY (XY = N(1), S(1), N(1), O(1), NS, SO(1-2), NO(1-2), etc.) series, as well as a shift from planar to more compact three-dimensional structures with increasing mass.
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