Comparative studies on analytical methods for the assessment of petroleum contamination in the marine environment II. Gas chromatographic analyses

Abstract

Although determinations of hydrocarbons in the marine environment are usually based on the same analytical steps, i.e. organic solvent extraction, column chromatographic purification, and hydrocarbon detection and identification; variations in equipment and solvent systems used in the extraction step, and also in the columns for purification and analysis, seriously impaired the development of a consistent data base concerning oil pollution on a global scale. Many authors and conferences emphasized the need, in this field, for a comparative study on the efficiency of various published analytical techniques. Fifteen techniques with 24 applications were chosen and applied to a fixed weight of uniform samples of sediments, mussels, fish, shrimps and green algae. The final hydrocarbon extracts were analyzed individually on a 2 m stainless-steel packed column (SE 30). The results obtained from this work showed considerable variations in the efficiency of different techniques from identical samples. The hydrocarbon yields varied from 94 to 1.4 ppm in sediments, from 40 to 9 ppm in mussels; from 216 to 1.3 ppm in fish; from 8.3 to 3.1 ppm in shrimps; and from 343 to 273 ppm in algae, all relative to wet weight of the samples. The gas chromatograms of the hydrocarbons obtained were found to be quite different with regard to peak intensities and distributions. This means that hydrocarbons obtained by the application of different techniques varied in their compositions and relative concentrations of their constituents. These results confirm what was already obtained and discussed previously using spectrofluorometric analyses. It can be concluded that it is necessary to establish a standard technique for the preparation of marine samples, for extraction and purification of the hydrocarbon extracts which should be applied by all laboratories specializing in this field.