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Advisor(s)
Abstract(s)
Total petroleum hydrocarbons (TPH) are important environmental contaminants which are toxic
to human and environmental receptors. Several analytical methods have been used to quantify TPH
levels in contaminated soils, specifically through infrared spectrometry (IR) and gas chromatography
(GC). Despite being two of the most used techniques, some issues remain that have been
inadequately studied: a) applicability of both techniques to soils contaminated with two distinct
types of fuel (petrol and diesel), b) influence of the soil natural organic matter content on the results
achieved by various analytical methods, and c) evaluation of the performance of both techniques
in analyses of soils with different levels of contamination (presumably non-contaminated and potentially
contaminated). The main objectives of this work were to answer these questions and to
provide more complete information about the potentials and limitations of GC and IR techniques.
The results led us to the following conclusions: a) IR analysis of soils contaminated with petrol is
not suitable due to volatilisation losses, b) there is a significant influence of organic matter in IR
analysis, and c) both techniques demonstrated the capacity to accurately quantify TPH in soils,
irrespective of their contamination levels.
Description
Keywords
Total petroleum hydrocarbons Soil Infrared spectrophotometry Gas chromatography
Citation
Publisher
Springer Verlag