Elemental composition detection system and method

An online fuel monitoring system of a gas turbine comprising:

• a fuel sampling unit coupled to a fuel supply line of the gas turbine to sample a fuel in real time;
• an element detection system comprising:
• one or more X-ray sources for transmitting X-rays towards a sample;
• one or more photon detectors;
• and
• one or more crystals arranged in a curvature with appropriate geometry for receiving one or more photon energies emitted from the sample and focusing the one or more photon energies on the one or more detectors,
• wherein the one or more photon detectors are spatially arranged at Bragg angles corresponding to signature photon energies to detect one or more elements;
• and
• a processor coupled to the element detection system and configured to compute a concentration of the one or more elements in the fuel sample.

A system to detect vanadium in a gas turbine fuel comprising:

• one or more X-ray sources to generate and transmit X-rays towards a gas turbine fuel sample;
• two or more X-ray optic crystals arranged in a curvature to receive one or more photon energies emitted by the sample and to reflect photons having energies corresponding to vanadium;
• and
• a photon detector disposed at a predetermined location in a reflected path of the two or more X-ray optic crystals and configured to detect photons having an energies corresponding to vanadium.