Inlet hydrogenation gas chromatography to predict mass % linear paraffin content

The light condensate fraction obtained from the low temperature Fischer-Tropsch (LT-FT) process is very complex and it is processed further by hydrotreating to produce hydrocarbon products that can be sold as final products. The mass% linear paraffins in some of the final paraffin products is listed as a required specification. Usually gas chromatography equipped with a flame ionisation detector (GC-FID) is used for the analysis of the condensate feeds to estimate the mass% linear paraffins that can be expected in the final products after commercial hydrogenation. This is an important parameter used in the blending of suitable condensate feeds. Due to the complexity of the condensate feeds, significant peak overlap occurs in the GC-FID analysis, making it difficult to accurately estimate the mass% linear paraffin content that will be obtained in the hydrogenated products. Inlet hydrogenation GC-FID analysis simplifies the prediction of the mass% linear content that can be expected in the paraffin product fractions from the analysis of a plant feed since the feed is hydrogenated in the GC inlet before GC-FID analysis. The results from this study showed that sufficient hydrogenation without significant peak tailing can be obtained in the GC inlet when using the appropriate mass and particle size Pd/Al₂O₃ catalyst with the optimum bed height. Inlet hydrogenation GC-FID analysis simplifies the prediction of the mass% linear content that can be expected in the paraffin product fractions. The method can be implemented on routine GC-FID instrumentation by simply installing an inlet liner containing an appropriate catalyst, that could be re-used at least 20 times, and avoids the purchasing of additional instrumentation and complex data processing and is suitable for commercial process control.