Determination of Microelements in Oil by Combined Sample Preparation Technique

The determination of a wide spectrum of microelements in four oil samples from the Arlanskoye, Labaganskoye, Priobskoye, and Romashkinskoye oil fields of the Russian Federation by inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (ICP-MS) is described. The following two techniques have been used for the sample preparation: microwave decomposition of oil for determination of Be, Na, Mg, Al, S, Ca, Ti, V, Cr, Co, Ni, Cu, Zn, Ga, Se, Rb, Sr, Zr, Mo, Cs, Ba, W, Re, and U; and extraction concentrating with rotating helix columns (RHC) for determination of Nb, Ru, Rh, Ag, Cd, Sb, Te, Hf, Ir, Pt, Te, and rare earth elements. Concentrating of the oil microelements with RHC has been shown to result in significant improvement of the ICP-MS detection limits.