I'm working on the biodegradation of used engine oil by bacteria, I must extract it from culture and analyze it to determine the bacterial activity againt the used engine oil, then I will analyze it by GC-MS,
I'm asking if I must treat it before or just dilute it in hexane and inject it in the apparatus??? thank you
Hello, agreed with previous answer.
Used oil can contain some mechanical particles so use for example nylon syringe filter 0.45 nm before injection will be good.
Good luck!
You can diluteit with hexane at PPM level, filter and inject it in the apparatus .
Hello, agreed with previous answer.
Used oil can contain some mechanical particles so use for example nylon syringe filter 0.45 nm before injection will be good.
Good luck!
If your engine oil is composed entirely of alkanes then dilution with hexane and filtering to get rid of solids would be enough. However your engine oil sample is quite likely to contain other compounds which will not separate in GC-MS without being derivatised, particularly if it is old/used/degraded.
You will need to read up on both engine oil composition and degradation, and the kinds of compounds which are produced by bacteria and then find an appropriate derivatisation method which allows all these to be analysed by GC-MS.
The component of the sample source really matters. You can first filter to limit level of impurities. Mind you some of the components filtered can also form part of your result for analysis. This is vital for your research based on the focus of the study. I am aware some scientist use mercuric compounds for their petrochemical analysis. But due to the carcinogenic nature of this substance, people are very careful in their handling of some solvents including methanol on general purpose. Hence the use of the Hexane is still in order coupled with filtration as discussed in this context.
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