Fast two‐dimensional gas chromatography applied in the characterization of bio‐oil from the pyrolysis of coconut fibers

Advanced mono- and multi-dimensional gas chromatography-mass spectrometry techniques for oxygen-containing compound characterization in biomass and biofuel samples

A wide variety of biomass, from triglycerides to lignocellulosic-based feedstock, are among promising candidates to possibly fulfill requirements as a substitute for crude oils as primary sources of chemical energy feedstock. During the feedstock processing carried out to increase the H:C ratio of the products, heteroatom-containing compounds can promote corrosion, thus limiting and/or deactivating catalytic processes needed to transform the biomass into fuel. The use of advanced gas chromatography techniques, in particular multi-dimensional gas chromatography, both heart-cutting and comprehensive coupled to mass spectrometry, has been widely exploited in the field of petroleomics over the past 30 years and has also been successfully applied to the characterization of volatile and semi-volatile compounds during the processing of biomass feedstock. This review intends to describe advanced gas chromatography-mass spectrometry-based techniques, mainly focusing in the period 2011-early 2020. Particular emphasis has been devoted to the multi-dimensional gas chromatography-mass spectrometry techniques, for the isolation and characterization of the oxygen-containing compounds in biomass feedstock. Within this context, the most recent advances to sample preparation, derivatization, as well as gas chromatography instrumentation, mass spectrometry ionization, identification, and data handling in the biomass industry, are described.

Influence of acquisition rate on performance of fast comprehensive two-dimensional gas chromatography coupled with time-of-flight mass spectrometry for coconut fiber bio-oil characterization

Comprehensive two-dimensional gas chromatography coupled with time-of-flight mass spectrometry (GC × GC/TOFMS) is used to characterize complex bio-oil samples because of the high peak capacity associated with the high acquisition rate and mass spectra deconvolution capability of TOFMS. A recent application of fast GC × GC for this type of analysis improved sample throughput while achieving the same peak capacity without the use of cryogenic liquids. This work evaluates the effect of the TOFMS data acquisition rate on the quality of the analytical information obtained by GC × GC/TOFMS. In the analysis of coconut fiber bio-oil under fast GC × GC/TOFMS conditions, use of high data acquisition rates (200-300 Hz) increases the number of identifiable peaks by more than 50% compared with that achieved at the conventional rate of 100 Hz. The acquisition rate can affect the peak capacity by a factor of 3 or more. This is the first study to demonstrate the importance of optimizing the data acquisition rate, a parameter that has previously been neglected in the literature, in GC × GC/TOFMS development.