DEVELOPMENT OF MASS SPECTROMETRIC METHODS FOR THE ANALYSIS OF BASE OILS AND JET FUELS AND FOR THE EXPERIMENTAL MEASUREMENT OF PROTON AFFINITIES OF ALKANES

Petroleum products, such as base oils and jet fuels, play an essential role in modern society since they are necessary as lubricants for engines and as fuels for airplanes. The ability to accurately characterize these petroleum products is crucial for the successful generation of these compound mixtures with desirable properties. Unfortunately, analysis of petroleum products remains challenging due to the fact that they often contain thousands of different hydrocarbons. The petroleum industry relies heavily on powerful analytical techniques to evaluate the chemical compositions of petroleum products in order to improve their crude oil refinery procedures. Tandem mass spectrometry is the only analytical technique that has the potential to provide both elemental composition and structural information for individual analytes in complex mixtures. When coupled to chromatography, different tandem mass spectrometry methods facilitate the analysis of individual hydrocarbons in complex mixtures and therefore provide more detailed compositional information for petroleum products than other analytical methods. Fundamental studies that explore the physical and chemical properties of hydrocarbons also facilitate the development of new mass spectrometric ionization techniques for these analytes. The research discussed in this dissertation can be divided into three parts: the development and validation of new quantitation methodology for compounds representing twelve different hydrocarbon types in jet fuels (Chapters 3), the comparison of (+)APCI MS and GCxGC/(+)EI TOF MS for the analysis of saturated and aromatic hydrocarbons in group III heavy base oils (Chapter 4), and experimental measurement of proton affinities of alkanes (Chapter 5).