From PFAS to Pyrolysis Oil: Highlights from GCC 2026

The 2026 Gulf Coast Conference (GCC) brought the petrochemical, refining, and environmental testing community to the Moody Gardens Convention Center in Galveston, Texas, from October 12–15. Exhibitors filled the hall on October 13 and 14, while parallel technical sessions ran from ASTM test methods to AI readiness.

The week opened with the annual golf tournament and an ASTM International course on test method precision, bias, and statistical quality control charts. It closed with BASIC's all-day course on bridging the gap between chemists and process engineers. In between, more than 160 companies displayed instruments, consumables, and services, and a New Product Showcase put recent launches in front of attendees.

Four themes ran through the program: PFAS, circular and low-carbon feedstocks, gas chromatography (GC) hardware built for uptime, and the laboratory's readiness for AI.

PFAS Takes Center Stage

Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) filled most of Tuesday's program in the Tulip Room, and the talks went well beyond drinking water.

• Complex water matrices. Lummus Technology's Ninoska Ruiz and Omobayo Salawu described practical controls for running EPA Method 1633A on industrial landfill leachate, where high solids and salts disrupt extraction and liquid chromatography tandem mass spectrometry (LC–MS/MS) response.
• Simpler sample prep. Chimauchem Odinaka of the University of Texas at Arlington presented an evaporative concentration approach that skips large-volume solid-phase extraction (SPE), with sub-ng/L detection limits for 23 out of 24 PFAS and an average recovery of 99.7%.
• Ultrashort chains. Dow's Madison Edwards-Beggs presented LC–MS/MS methods that quantify 22 PFAS at low parts-per-trillion levels using a simplified large-volume injection, and evaluated chromatographic conditions for ultrashort-chain species, including trifluoroacetic acid (TFA) and triflic acid.
• Beyond targeted lists. A number of speakers argued for total organic fluorine screening by combustion-ion chromatography (CIC), which converts organofluorine compounds to fluoride to catch what targeted LC–MS/MS misses.
• PFAS in air. Air monitoring was described as the next frontier. The University of Houston reported fluorotelomer measurements in Houston urban air using thermal desorption gas chromatography–mass spectrometry (TD-GC–MS), and another talk showed an EPA OTM-50 workflow using TD-GC–MS/MS.
• Hardware and materials. Flow-path materials for PFAS work were compared and a roughly 10-min pyrolysis (py)-GC–MS screen for trace PTFE in polystyrene packaging was presented.

The common thread was practicality: laboratories want methods that hold up on dirty, real-world samples, not just clean standards.

New Feedstocks, New Matrices

The energy transition is changing what refinery laboratories measure, and several sessions tackled feedstocks that did not exist in volume a decade ago.

Waste plastic pyrolysis oil came up repeatedly. Lummus Technology's Amey Gonzalez paired total oxygen analysis with GC–MS and fractionation to map oxygenates that conventional ASTM D7423 methods miss in heavier fractions. Other talks addressed fluorine and halogens in pyrolysis oil by CIC and showed py- and TD-GC–MS for characterizing waste and recycled plastics. Oak Ridge National Laboratory's Derek Dwyer went a step further, applying product-specific kinetic analysis to py-GC–MS data to show how individual degradation products form as polymers break down.

On the low-carbon fuels side, one session demonstrated micro-GC monitoring of catalytic ammonia cracking from zero to more than 99.99% conversion, measuring ammonia, hydrogen, nitrogen, and water simultaneously. Oxygenate-rich refinery streams are also stretching established methods. Chevron's Tao Wei described vacuum thermal gravimetric analysis as a complement to GC-based simulated distillation, which can struggle with incomplete elution and compound-dependent response factors in these matrices.

Keynote: Chemistry in Milliseconds

James M. Tour of Rice University gave Wednesday's keynote on rapid synthesis using ultrahigh temperatures and electric fields, including flash heating that turns petroleum products into graphene and other carbon materials within seconds. For a petrochemical audience, the message was that today's feedstocks may become tomorrow's advanced materials.

Gas Chromatography: Built for Uptime

GC remains the workhorse of the hydrocarbon laboratory, and this year's GC talks focused less on raw separation power than on keeping instruments running and data trustworthy.

Instrument talks emphasized sensitivity, flexibility, and reduced downtime. Presenters covered new multimode injection ports, upgraded thermal conductivity detectors (TCD) and flame ionization detectors (FID), self-monitoring diagnostics, and eco idling features, along with tips for conserving helium, hydrogen, and nitrogen and practical advice on GC and GC–MS method optimization and maintenance.

Selective detection was another strand. Sessions covered nitrogen chemiluminescence detection for trace ammonia and NOx (Lummus Technology), the pulsed flame photometric detector beyond sulfur, quartz combustion tubes for sulfur chemiluminescence detectors, and back-pressure effects on TCD sensitivity. Lummus Technology's Dion Boddie described a GC method with pulsed discharge helium ionization detection (GC-PDHID) that measures sub-ppm propylene oxide directly in polymer-grade propylene. Another talk presented a low-cost route to quantitative GC×GC–FID using flow modulation and a benchtop single quadrupole.

AI, Data, and the Quality System

AI in the laboratory moved from "what if" to "how do we trust it," with talks on folding AI into routine operations, managing model drift, and judging a laboratory's digital readiness. Quality fundamentals also drew a crowd, including a decade of changes to ASTM D6299 statistical quality control.

Looking Ahead

GCC 2026 showed a petrochemical laboratory under pressure from several directions: tighter PFAS limits, unfamiliar recycled feedstocks, scarce carrier gases, and the arrival of AI. The response on display was pragmatic: robust methods for messy samples, instruments designed to stay online, and quality systems that make new tools trustworthy.

For more information, visit gulfcoastconference.com.