Molecular analysis of the sulphur components in a light cycle oil of a catalytic cracking unit by gas chromatography with mass spectrometric and atomic emission detection

This paper presents a detailed characterization of the sulphur components present in a light cycle oil of a catalytic cracking unit. The sulphur is distributed over the benzothiophene (BT), dihydrobenzothiophene, dibenzothiophene (DBT) and naphthothiophene families. All monosubstituted BT and DBT isomers are identified next to most components of the C-2-BT and C-2-DBT subfamilies. A correlation was developed for the prediction of the retention times of polymethylBTs. This correlation was applied to the identification of trimethylBT and tetramethylBT. The sulphur components were quantified using gas chromatography with an atomic emission detector.