For developing low-emission vehicles, the understanding of the variations in the composition of hydrocarbons is very important. To analyze about 300 hydrocarbons with different components in the exhaust gas from a gasoline-fueled vehicle, therefore, a new method for analyzing specific hydrocarbons using a single column was developed. The use of a separation column with a 0.53-mm-diameter pre-column made it possible to prevent the freezing of the water in the exhaust gas and the resulting stopping of the carrier gas flow. Also, the use of the optimized gas chromatograph conditions and the developed software for analyzing data enabled identification and quantification of 250 components of hydrocarbons which accounted for 98% of the total hydrocarbon contained in the exhaust gas. The performance of this method is explained as follows: The reproducibility of retention times of the hydrocarbons is within 0.5% in the coefficient of variation (C.V.), the detection limit is 0.5 ppmC, the precision of quantification is within 8% in the C.V., and the analysis time is about one hour. Additional useful information was obtained from analysis of the exhaust gases, such as engine-out and catalyst-out gases, using this method.
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