Detecting the unseen to protect the essential

Many vessels receive ISO8217 compliant fuel, yet on burning this fuel, they suffer from varying operational problems. This is often due to the presence of chemical contaminants within the fuel. These contaminants can arise due the blending of diluents and cutter stocks, supply chain cross-contamination, or deliberate adulteration, as examples.

Our experience, expertise and extensive fuel database of more than 1 million samples has enabled us to develop innovative proprietary test methods to detect fuel contaminants and then understand the impact of burning these fuels.

There is no current international test method which can detect all chemical species within fuels. Therefore we, over the past 25 years, have led the industry in the development of chemical contamination methodologies.

When it comes to organic contamination, a huge variety of substances can be found in fuel. We have identified many different substances that are not usually found in fuels including, alkenes, aldehydes, alcohols, chlorinated hydrocarbons, esters, heterocyclic compounds, ketones, fatty acids, phenolic compounds, styrenes and others.

We have a list of target compounds that we look for – these compounds have been identified from the forensic GCMS analyses we have performed over the past 25 years, with more than 8,000 samples tested.