Assessment of soil organic contamination in a typical petrochemical industry park in China

Teng, Yong; Zhou, Qixing; Miao, Xinyu; Chen, Yuming

Assessment of soil organic contamination in a typical petrochemical industry park in China

2015

Teng, Yong | Zhou, Qixing | Miao, Xinyu | Chen, Yuming

The concentrations of total petroleum hydrocarbons (TPH), n-alkanes (n-C₈ through n-C₄₀), and 16 polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) in soils were determined to assess the level of organic contamination in soils from the Da-gang Petrochemical Industry Park with several big state-run enterprises, a recent rapid flourishing park in China. The results showed that the concentration of TPH in soil was high, up to 20 ng/g–12.8478 %; in particular, the content in most sites ranged from 1 to 2 %. Thus, it is clear that soil environment in the Da-gang Petrochemical Industry Park has been seriously polluted by TPH according to the Nemerow pollution index method. Furthermore, the average concentration of Σ(n-C>₁₆ through n-C₃₄) in 30 sampling sites was above the maximum limit set for F3 under all the conditions in the Canada-wide standards for petroleum hydrocarbons (PHC CWS) with 43.33–93.33 % soil samples exceeding F3 standards, and n-alkanes possessing higher concentrations were proved much abundant alkanes in this study. Besides, the predominance of even n-alkanes and lower carbon preference index (CPI) demonstrated that n-alkanes in surface soils were mainly caused by anthropogenic inputs, while the concentration of Σ₁₆-PAHs was in the range of 1652.5–8217.3 ng/g and the BaA/(BaA + Chr) and Flu/(Flu + Pyr) ratios indicated that pyrogenic PAHs may be the dominant PAHs in most soils with the contribution of petrogenic hydrocarbons in some sites.

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