Determination of phenolic antioxidants in aviation jet fuel

The world-wide aviation jet fuel used for civil and military aircraft is of a kerosene type. To avoid peroxide production after the refinery process a specific antioxidant additive should be added on fuel. The antioxidants ge nerally used are based on hindered phenols in a range of concentration 10-2 0 mu g/ml. In the present work a specific method to measure the concentrati on of phenolic antioxidants is shown. The method is based on a liquid chrom atographic technique with electrochemical detection. The technique, because of its selectivity, does not require sample pre-treatments. The analysis o f a 5-10 mi fuel sample can be performed in less than 10 min with a sensiti vity of 0.1 mu g/ml and a RSD=2.5%. A comparison with another highly select ive gas chromatographic technique with mass spectrometric detection with se lected ion monitoring (GC-MS-SIM) is reported. The sensitivity of GC-MS-SIM method was 2 mu g/ml with a RSD=3.1%. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science B.V. All r ights reserved.