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C. Kanakaki, R. Kadnar, E. Rosenberg:
"Method Development for the Analysis of Fluorinated Benzoic Acids Used as Organic Tracers in Petrochemical Exploration Studies";
Poster: IMA 2013 - Instrumental Methods of Analysis, Thessaloniki, Greece; 15.09.2013 - 19.09.2013.

There is a vital need in the petrochemical industry for the characterization and understanding of the oil and gas reservoir geometry, and the flow patterns that are existing or may be induced in these reservoirs during exploitation. Many different characterization tools are nowadays available, such as production flow rates of reservoir fluids, four-dimensional (4D) seismic analysis, pressure measurements and tracing tests [1]. Interwell tracing techniques, involving multiple injection and production points, have proven to be the main useful tool in complex oil reservoirs, providing reliable, definitive and unambiguous information on flood patterns within the reservoir [2].
Many different types of water and gas tracers for both single and interwell tests have been used in the petroleum industry during the last decades. Initially, tracers can be broken down into two main categories, the radioactive tracers, such as tritium (3H) and tritiated water (HTO) and the non-radioactive or chemical tracers, which include ionic tracers, like the halides, fluorescent dyes, like uranine and amidorhodamine G, and organic tracers, such as alcohols, perfluorocarbons (PFCs), halogenated derivatives of benzoic acid (HBAs), organic germanium compounds and naphthalene sulphonic acids (NAS). The fluorinated benzoic acids (FBAs), like those examined in this work, are the organic tracers with the widest use, due to their favourable physico-chemical properties.
This work will discuss the method development for the analysis of a large set of fluorobenzoic acids, based on a simple and efficient derivatisation technique, solid-phase extraction (SPE) for pre-concentration and analysis by gas chromatography/mass spectrometry (GC/MS). Optimization of the individual steps of the method was performed and yielded a method that allows to quantitatively determine up to 14 different FBAs in one run. Depending on the pre-concentration factor, the method provides a sensitivity down to the low ppb range for individual compounds which allows their efficient use in interwell tracer studies. Over the course of this research, we have also analyzed reservoir water samples spiked with the examined group of analytes, proving the robustness of the method for the particular matrix. Future work shall more systematically investigate alternative detection schemes, such as liquid chromatography/mass spectrometry, LC/MS.


References
[1] C. Serres-Piole, A. Commarieu, H. Garraud, R. Lobinski and H. Preud´homme, Energy Fuels, 25 (2011) 4488-4496.
[2] Y. Du and L. Guan, Society of Petroleum Engineers Inc. (2005) SPE 93140.