Determination of levels of polychlorinated biphenyl in transformers oil from some selected transformers in parts of the Greater Accra Region of Ghana

Abstract

Although polychlorinated biphenyls have never been manufactured in Ghana, it has been used extensively as dielectric fluid in electric transformers and capacitors. However, very little is known of its health and environmental impacts by both managers of these transformers and capacitors and also the general public. This work therefore seeks to explore INAA as a possible alternative to screening transformer oils for PCBs by determining the total chlorine content. The total chlorine content of transformer oil samples from Ghana that tested positive and some randomly selected samples that tested negative from screening using CLOR-N-OIL test kits, have had their total chlorine estimated. INAA using the Research Reactor located at the Ghana Atomic Energy Commission was used to estimate the total chlorine content of the oil samples. Neutron Activation and gamma ray spectroscopy using HPGe detector coupled to MAESTRO 32 software was used to determine the total chlorine content by integrating the peak area of the spectrum into a simplified program that was developed from the activation equation. Instrumental Neutron Activation Analysis was able to validate the result obtained from the test kits screening with accuracy 7.5%. The minimum total chlorine content of the positive samples determined by NAA was 71.34 μg g −1.