Publications by authors named "Elcio Cruz de Oliveira"

The concept of uncertainty in an isotopic analysis is not uniform in the scientific community worldwide and can compromise the risk of false compliance assessment applied to carbon isotopic analyses in natural gas exploratory evaluation. In this work, we demonstrated a way to calculate one of the main sources of this uncertainty, which is underestimated in most studies focusing on gas analysis: the δC calculation itself is primarily based on the raw analytical data. The carbon isotopic composition of methane, ethane, propane, and CO was measured.

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Background: Increasingly, measurement uncertainty has been used by pure and applied analytical chemistry to ensure decision-making in commercial transactions and technical-scientific applications. Until recently, it was considered that measurement uncertainty boiled down to analytical uncertainty; however, over the last two decades, uncertainty arising from sampling has also been considered. However, the second version of the EURACHEM guide, published in 2019, assumes that the frequency distribution is approximately normal or can be normalized through logarithmic transformations, without treating data that deviate from the normality.

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Radiopharmaceuticals have been used to diagnose several diseases, particularly because the procedure is non-invasive. However, it is important that the correct amount of radiopharmaceutical is used to avoid inaccurate diagnostic results and suboptimal therapeutic outcomes. The amount of the radiopharmaceutical is measured when produced (by the supplier) and a second time (by the receiver), before it's use.

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Sulfur-containing compounds are naturally found in crude oil, and they can be partially removed during the refining process. The wide use of fossil fuels has a significant contribution to sulfur emissions into the atmosphere, and Governments are striving to reduce the amount of the fuels by environmental regulations. The reduction of sulfur levels in diesel and other transportation fuels is beneficial from economic and environmental points, but meeting this standard represents a major operational and economic challenge for the oil and gas industry.

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One of the quality control parameters of ethanol fuel is pH, established by the Brazilian standard ABNT NBR 10891, whose scope is specific for hydrated ethanol fuel, and by the American standard ASTM D 6423, which focuses on anhydrous ethanol fuel. This study presented a modified and optimized structure using a single solvent, both for the glass electrode and the external reference electrode, to minimize the presence of the liquid junction potential for measuring the pH of hydrated ethanol fuel. The Box-Behnken design enabled us to determine the optimal condition expected for the new measurement system, which was compared with the systems proposed by the standard references and the turning range of acid-base indicators using parametric and nonparametric tests.

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This study aimed to introduce non-parametric tests and guard bands to assess the compliance of some river water properties with Brazilian environmental regulations. Due to the heterogeneity of the measurands pH, Biochemical Oxygen Demand (BOD), manganese molar concentration, and , which could be wrongly treated as outliers, as well as the non-Gaussian data, robust methods were used to calculate the measurement uncertainty. Next, based on guard bands, the compliance assessment was evaluated using this previous uncertainty information.

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Sometimes, analytical chemicals forget that the measurement process begins with the selection of the sample; thus, it must be understood that the measurement uncertainty is constituted by the association of the uncertainty arising from the sampling and the uncertainty arising from the traditional analytical process, that which is carried out in the laboratory. The analytical process is well-controlled, so its uncertainty is well defined; however, the uncertainty arising from sampling, for not having this controlled environment, is often not evident, so that there is still no culture to consider it for the calculation of measurement uncertainty. This study discusses the importance of the sampling uncertainty concerning the analytical uncertainty and details the current approaches available in the literature, such as the classical analysis of variance, the robust analysis of variance, and the range statistics.

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Historically, owing to the increase in processing capacity over the years, validation and adjustment of measurements have become imperative. In particular, concerning discussions related to data and results in analytical chemistry, there is always a need to improve their reliability. The data reconciliation technique has the objective of using measurement redundancies to obtain the best estimate of the true value and, consequently to minimize its uncertainty.

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The low-quality of automotive fuels may lead to the generation of pollutants harmful to both environmental and human health. The quality evaluation of automotive fuels requires a multiparameter conformity assessment, which may lead to an increased total risk of false conformity decisions even if all parameters comply with the acceptance limits. Thus, the aim of this work was to propose the establishment of multivariate acceptance limits in order to ensure a reduced total risk of false conformity decisions applied to automotive fuels analysis.

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Chemical analysts use analytical blanks in their analyses, but seldom is this source of uncertainty evaluated. Generally, there is great confusion. Although the numerical value of the blank, in some situations, can be negligible, its source of uncertainty cannot be.

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