Quality versus economical aspects in determination of water in crude oils: Centrifuge method or potentiometric Karl Fischer titration

The authors’ objective is to evaluate economical aspects versus quality of three different approaches to determine water in crude oils. The first two are based on potentiometric Karl Fischer titration, normal and reduced size (lower reagent consumption) of the test sample, and the last one is the centrifuge method. To help the best understanding of the potentiometric Karl Fischer titration method, the authors detail its uncertainty evaluation. When their results are compared by analyses of variance, it is not observed statistical differences among these approaches. Finally, the costs are described in order to shed light on which one to choose once all of them show compatible quality.