Andreas Panagiotopoulos is currently an industrially sponsored PhD student at the University of Southampton (UK) under the supervision of Prof. G. J. Langley. The focus of his research is the study of deposit formation chemistry in gasoline fuel and gasoline direct injection fuel systems utilising hyphenated techniques of chromatography and mass spectrometry.
He obtained his MSc in analytical chemistry at the University of Southampton and subject area was supercritical fluid chromatography coupled to mass spectrometry. He worked as an analytical chemist in the company P.G. NIKAS ABEE (Greece). His duties included quality assurance of products and laboratory management. His first degree is in chemistry and graduated from University of Patras (Greece).
Andreas is a member of British Mass Spectrometry Society (BMSS) and an associate member of Royal Society of Chemistry (AMRSC). He has presented his research in the meeting Advances in hyphenated mass spectrometry, held in King’s College London, April 2019.
New ultra-high pressure supercritical chromatography - mass spectrometry (UHPSFC-MS) methods have been developed to separate and detect gasoline gum components that were undetected by GC-MS. The different techniques reveal distinct compounds within the gasoline gum samples, e.g. using UHPSFC-MS carrier oils and detergents are observed. The gum samples were prepared following the IP 131; ASTM D381 standard method and then analysed by UHPSFC using different ionisation processes.
UHPSFC uses supercritical carbon dioxide and a polar modifier to provide separation of involatile and large molecules in the gum samples. Data are visualised using an ion map, utilising a graphic representation of m/z, retention time and ion intensity. These ion maps can be used to screening of fuel samples where the different classes of compounds can be readily observed.