Combined TPH and BTEX Analytic Method to Identify Domestic Petroleum Products in Contaminated Soil

The significance of maintaining the soil environment is gradually increasing owing to soil and underground water contamination by petroleum leak accidents. However, the purification of soil is an expensive and more time-consuming process than the purification of contaminated water and air. Moreover, determining the source and people responsible for soil pollution gets often embroiled in legal conflicts, further delaying the cleanup process of the contaminate site. Generally, TPH (total petroleum hydrocarbon) pattern analysis is used to determine the petroleum species and polluter responsible for soil contamination. However, this process has limited application for petroleum products with a similar TPH pattern. In this study, we analyze the TPH pattern and specific sectional ratio (${\sim}C_{10}$, $C_{10}-C_{12}$, $C_{12}-C_{36}$, and $C_{36}{\sim}$) of various domestic petroleum products to identify the petroleum product responsible for soil contamination. Also, we perform BTEX (benzene, toluene, ethyl benzene, xylene) quantitative analysis and determine B:T:E:X ratio using GC-MS. The results show that gasoline grade 1 and 2 have a similar TPH pattern but different BTEX values and ratios. This means that BTEX analysis can be used as a new method to purify soil pollution. This complementary TPH and BTEX method proposed in this study can be used to identify the petroleum species and polluters present in the contaminated soil.

오염토양 내 석유제품 판별을 위한 TPH 및 BTEX 분석