Because trace amounts of mercury in crude oil can produce negative impacts on refinery operations and profitability, and thus affect oil's quality and price, accurate determination of mercury using a reliable technique is very important. Since its development in 1995, the combustion/trap technique has been continuously improved and employed to generate accurate results for the refinery industry, and showed significant advantages over wet extraction methods. The analytical performance of the combustion/trap technique in different types of samples at different mercury concentration levels was statistically compared with wet extraction methods. The statistical comparison would help refiners and analytical chemists in understanding and choosing an adequate technique for analysis of crude oil and various refinery products, and help in assessing existing analytical results obtained using different techniques. Comparison of results indicated that wet extraction methods could generate negative bias of up to 50%, depending on different types and concentration levels of samples. Negative bias found for oil samples can hide potential risks caused by mercury poisoning to some critical refining operations which require processing of oils free of mercury. The combustion/trap technique can be used for analysis of all crude oils and various refinery products except sulfur, while wet extraction methods cannot be used for analysis of most refinery products.
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Liang et al. (2003) studied this question.
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