Determination of low-carbon alcohols, aldehydes and ketones in aqueous products of Fischer-Tropsch synthesis by gas chromatography

A method for the determination of low-carbon (C-1 - C-8) alcohols, aldehydes and ketones in aqueous products of Fischer-Tropsch synthesis was developed by gas chromatography. It included the optimization of separation conditions, the precision and accuracy of determination, and the use of correction factors of the analytes to ethanol for quantification. The aqueous products showed that the correlation coefficients for ethanol in different content ranges were above 0.99, which means it had good linear correlations. The spiked recoveries in the aqueous samples of Fischer-Tropsch synthesis were from 93.4% to 109.6%. The accuracy of the method can satisfy the requirement for the analysis of the aqueous samples of Fischer-Tropsch synthesis. The results showed that the total mass fractions of the major low-carbon alcohols, aldehydes, ketones in aqueous products of Fischer-Tropsch synthesis were about 3% - 12%, and the contents of ethanol were the highest (about 1.7% - 7.3%). The largest share of the total proportion was n-alcohols, followed by isomeric alcohols, aldehydes and ketones were the lowest. This method is simple, fast, and has great significance for the analysis of important components in aqueous products of Fischer-Tropsch synthesis.