Recently we demonstrated the potential of electrospray-mass spectrometry (E
S-MS) for the qualitative analysis of several important classes of oilfield
production chemicals, including emulsion breakers, corrosion inhibitors, s
cale inhibitors and sequesterants. Particular advantages of ES-MS are that
it is sensitive, it produces mainly molecular ions, and it is simple to aut
omate and to interface with liquid chromatography (LC), Here we extend the
scope of our preliminary loop injection analysis study to include the analy
sis of quaternary ammonium and imidazoline corrosion inhibitors by on-line
high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) MS. This will demonstrate the
potential of LC interfaced to ES-MS for the characterisation of structural
ly complex oilfield chemicals. Furthermore, the ability of this technique t
o quantify residual corrosion inhibitors in oilfield fluids has been invest
igated. Quantitative data provides a gain of at least two orders of magnitu
de sensitivity over the LC-diode array methodology previously used and also
provides the specificity of the mass spectrometric information. Copyright
(C) 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.