Identification of Oil Spill from Imported Crude Oils in China Using GC/IrMS

Abstract

Shipping crude oil increases the potential pollution impact on the marine environment of China. To evaluate the spills of imported crude oil, the development of a technique to rapidly and accurately confirm the responsibility of the wreckers is vital. In this study, gas chromatography/stable isotope ratio mass spectrometry (GC/IrMS) was used to analyze the stable carbon isotope ratio (δ13C) of n-alkanes (n-C10∼n-C32) in seven crude oils. It was difficult to distinguish Kuwait (K3#) oil samples from United Arab Emirates (U5#) samples, Saudi Arabia (S7#) from Iraq (I8#) samples, and Malaysia (M6#) from Venezuela (V2#) samples using the distribution of the δ13C values and PCA. The combination of the δ13C and the diagnostic ratio (DR) distinguished these crude oils more clearly than using the δ13C or DR alone.