Comparison of the fluorescence behavior of a biocrude oil and crude petroleum oils

The production and characterization of biocrude and petroleum like products from natural, renewable resources such as oil-bearing plant seeds is an interesting area of research at the moment. The present article discusses the results of a comparative fluorescence study in relation to the composition of a biocrude with petroleum crude oil of Assam, India (Assam-A), and some other crude oils around the world. It has been observed that biocrude has a very different lifetime-wavelength plot when compared to that of Assam-A and other petroleum crude oils. Although biocrude has a normalized lifetime-wavelength profile similar to that found in light crude petroleum oils, the magnitude of the lifetimes are dramatically reduced by the presence of a high concentration of polar compounds (∼16.11%). The study of TSFS plots shows that Assam-A has a profile similar to most light-medium crude oils, but the biocrude plot is totally different from any of the crude oils for which we have TSFS data. This indicates that the biocrudes have a radically different distribution compared to crude oils. This might also explain the "pinch point" of the biocrude at an excitation wavelength below ∼300 nm.