Distribution of acids and nitrogen-containing compounds in biodegraded oils of the Liaohe Basin by negative ion ESI FT-ICR MS

Seven reservoir core (tar sand) bitumens of identical source and similar maturity from the Liaohe Basin of northeast China possess a natural sequence of increasing severity of biodegradation. This set of samples provides us an opportunity to study the change in oil composition or compound class distributions with biodegradation severity by negative ion electrospray Fourier transform-ion cyclotron resonance mass spectrometry (FT ICR-MS). The bitumen extracts from two columns (Es3 and Es1) were separated into maltene and asphaltene fractions for analysis of heteroatomic species by ESI FT-ICR MS. The maltene fractions were found to mainly contain N1, N1O1, N1O2, N1O3, O1, O2, O3 and O4 classes, while the asphaltene fractions mainly contain N1, N2O1, N1O1, N1O2, N1O3, N1O4, O2, O3, O4 and O5 classes. These species identified by FT-ICR MS in asphaltene fractions are likely to be chemisorbed/coprecipitated compounds, or the species precipitated due to high polarity during deasphaltene process. The susceptibility of compound classes and homologous series to biodegradation was studied based on the relative abundances. The results indicate that microorganisms alter the distribution of acids and nitrogen-containing compounds by selective removal and preservation of certain classes of compounds according to their susceptibility to biodegradation. For example, O2 and N1O2 classes increase significantly while N1 and N1O1 classes decrease with biodegradation. The differences in the susceptibility to microbial alteration within acyclic acids, 4-5 ring acids and 1-2 ring acids are discussed and the differences in the susceptibility of homologous series of heteroatom-containing polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons are also discussed in this work. (C) 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.