Insoluble organic matter techniques

Standardization of analytical techniques has helped greatly to compare asphalts of diflFerent areas and diflFerent periods. Repeated extractions with boiling toluene has improved consistency of data, whether or not it is the best way of separating bitumen and minerals. Liquid chromatographic analysis not only determines the amount of minerals suspended in the bitumen but also provides fractions suitable for further characterization. X-ray diffraction promises to improve vastly analysis of the minerals. No good way of resolving whatever usually small amounts of insoluble organic matter may be present has been devised. 

The combined use of pyrolysis techniques followed by CSIA measurements (both offline hydrous pyrolysis and online pyrolysis-GC-IRMS) enables the isotopic compositions of fragments of the macromolecular material to be determined. This approach has been applied to the study of the stable carbon isotope distribution of insoluble organic matter in three carbonaceous... 

Orren [663] used atomic absorption spectrometry to determine these elements in seawater in both their soluble and insoluble forms. The alkali metals are determined directly, but the other elements are first concentrated by solvent extraction. The particulate matter content is derived by dissolving the membranes used to filter the sample and determine the metals in the resulting solution. For organic standards of known metal content, the efficiency of the technique was almost 100%. 

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