Rapid Identification of Petroleum Products by Near-Infrared Spectroscopy

Near-infrared (NIR) spectroscopy has been successfully utilized for the rapid identification of six typical petroleum products such as light straight-run (LSR), naphtha, kerosine, light gas oil (LGO), gasoline, and diesel. The spectral features of each product were reasonably differentiated in the NIR region, and the spectral differences provided enough qualitative spectral information for discrimination. For discrimination, principal component analysis (PCA) combined with Mahalanobis distance was used to identify each petroleum product from NIR spectra. The results showed that each product was accurately identified with an accuracy over 95%. Most noticeably, LSR, kerosine, gasoline, and diesel samples were predicted with identification accuracy of 99%. The overall results ensure that a portable NIR instrument combined with a multivariate qualitative discrimination method can be efficiently utilized for rapid and simple identification of petroleum products. This is especially important when local at-site measurements are necessary, such as accidental petroleum leakage and regulation of illegal product blending.