Raman and Infrared Spectroscopy of Crude Oil and its Constituents

Raman and Infrared (IR) spectroscopy combined with multivariate data analysis are valuable and versatile tools for the analysis of complex fluids. This chapter gives a brief overview of the fundamentals of vibrational spectroscopyand its applications to crude oil and its constituents. A special focus lies on the experimental methods capable of obtaining spectra from highly viscous and optically opaque samples. Selected applications to whole crude oil and special fractions are discussed.