Analysis of fractions and bio-oil of sugar cane straw by one-dimensional and two-dimensional gas chromatography with quadrupole mass spectrometry (GC x GC/qMS)

This paper describes the use of GC x GC/qMS for the characterization of bio-oil from the pyrolysis of sugar cane straw and its fractions (from pressurized liquid fractionation by solvent elution). This is the first use of this technique for a bio-oil characterization. The GC x GC/qMS allied to some computational tools, allowed the identification and classification of the compounds according to many factors such as chemical class, number of carbons, number of substituents in the carbonic chain, molecular weight and main peaks in fragmentation spectra. It used also the LTPRI (linear-temperature-programmed retention index) system for the confirmation of the identification of some of the compounds in the bio-oil and fractions. It found a total number of 331 compounds tentatively identified in the crude bio-oil and 166 were confirmed by LTPRI identification. The fractionation step promoted a better selectivity of the compounds in the fractions, allowing the identification of a greater number of compounds. (C) 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.