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CHARACTERIZATION OF HEAVY RESIDUAL FUEL OILS AND ASPHALTS BY INFRARED SPECTROPHOTOMETRY USING STATISTICAL DISCRIMINANT FUNCTION ANALYSIS
Citation:
Kawahara, F., J. Santner, AND E. Julian. CHARACTERIZATION OF HEAVY RESIDUAL FUEL OILS AND ASPHALTS BY INFRARED SPECTROPHOTOMETRY USING STATISTICAL DISCRIMINANT FUNCTION ANALYSIS. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Washington, D.C., EPA/600/J-74/001 (NTIS PB83169722).
Description:
Spilled asphaltic materials and heavy residual fuel oils, because of their high molecular weights, complexity, and physical nature, cannot be readily identified to a source since these materials are not usually amenable to analysis by gas chromatography with flame ionization detector. The limiting difficulty is the inability to vaporize and to separate the high molecular weight components in the GC column. Infrared spectrophotometry is a useful technique for characterization of these materials. A combination of infrared spectrophotometry, data treatment, data transformation, and discriminant function analysis through computer assistance has resulted in effecting a more precise and accurate method of distinguishing between these two heavy petroleum products. An established statistical technique has been successfully applied to a recently developed infrared procedure for heavier petroleum products to provide a useful and powerful technique for classification of samples. (Copyright (c) 1974 by the American Chemical Society.)