Before we can use petroleum to power our transportation or produce products such as plastic, pesticides and pharmaceuticals, we have to get that black gold out of the ground and refine it.  Measuring trace elements in the oil is critical to downstream processes because some trace elements interfere with fluid catalytic cracking most importantly nickel and vanadium (from Wikipedia).

According to Maryutina et al. current methods for oil analysis require time consuming sample preparation and have poor detection limits as well as a restricted number of elements that can be tested for at one time.  “CCC gives a unique possibility of direct isolation and pre-concentration (without additional sample prep) of trace elements from oil.” (Maryutina et al) This is just one example of the benefit of CCC’s ability to handle raw samples! Believe it or not, crude oil can actually be used as a mobile phase in CCC.

Check out their paper Counter-current chromatography for oil analysis: Retention features and kinetic effects