Phillips Petroleum Company

Grady T Porter

Lewis B Roof

Edward N Fuller

Method and apparatus are disclosed which provide for the automatic intermittent injection of a small sample of liquid from a process liquid stream, dilution of the small quantity sample of liquid in a diluent stream, injection of a small quantity of the thus diluted liquid sample in a carrier fluid stream and analysis of the diluted liquid sample in the carrier fluid stream to determine the composition of the process liquid. Means are also disclosed for the analysis of manually prepared samples or calibration samples.

Liquid sample dilution system

Two conduit means having a preselected volumetric relationship one to the other, at least one of these conduit means having a plurality of parallel passageways having different flow transmission time characteristics, are utilized in the dilution of a sample by filling one of the conduit means with a diluent liquid and the other with a sample material, then connecting the two conduit means together in a closed conduit loop and circulating the contents of the loop through the loop in order to cause uniform mixing of the sample material with the diluent liquid. In a preferred embodiment the diluted sample material is resampled from the conduit loop for further use or analysis.

Sample dilution

In the liquid chromatographic analysis of a sample containing two or more constituents which are chromatograhically separable using an aqueous ether carrier liquid, an effective amount of water is added to the chromatographic carrier liquid thereby increasing the efficiency of the chromatographic separation and decreasing the incidence of chromatographic column plugging. In a preferred embodiment, addition of a small amount of water to a tetrahydrofuran carrier liquid results in substantial improvement in the analysis of a sulfuric acid alkylation catalyst wherein a sample containing sulfuric acid and other chromatographically separatable organic materials is separated in order to measure the relative proportions of sulfuric acid and hydrocarbon or other materials within the sample.

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Bartlesville, OK, United States of America

Grady T Porter