Mapping of Saudi Arabian Crude Oil by Advanced Spectro-Chemical Methods

The aim of the proposed work is to establish new spectro-electro-chemical technique that can be utilized to quantitatively characterize major components of various types of crude oil samples from Saudi Arabia. Due to the unique magnetic and photochemical characteristics of rare elements in the crude oil, the research activities work will focus on their magnetic resonance and/or photochemical properties for the identification and distribution of several rare elements in the crude oil samples, either as found or after converting them into a specific oxidation state via a controlled electrochemical Redox processes. The magnetic properties will be determined through electron spin resonance (ESR) also knownas electron paramagnetic resonance (EPR). Among the paramagnetic species, the major is the vanadyl porphyrin complex VO2+, which reveals a specific hyper-fine structure (HFS) in its EPR spectrum. Other forms of paramagnetic species, so called the organic free radicals that can be investigated during an electrochemical Redox processes of the crude oil such as asphaltene. A combined photochemical-electrochemical EPR-spectroscopy is expected to produce a complete distribution of potential rare metals in various types of the crude oils by using a modified model of our newly invented Electro-EPR cell (U.S. Patent No. US20150068899) for the first time. Other traditional techniques, such as ICP, GC-MS, GC, HPLC, XRD, etc., will be used as reference analytical methods as needed.