Studying and Verifying the Use of Chemical Biomarkers for Identifying andQuantitating Oil Residues in the Environment

摘要

Analytical chemistry and instrumentation provides environmental scientists withthe ability to identify and track the fate of spilled oil residues in the marine environment. Compounds commonly used for the identification of spilled oil to a source are called biomarkers. Biomarker compounds are universal in crude oils and petroleum products and are generally more resistant to environmental weathering than most other oil constituents. The distribution of biomarker compounds is unique for each oil and different sources of petroleum exhibit different oil fingerprints. Self-normalizing fingerprint indexes (SFI) calculated from the oil fingerprints provide a stable and useful tool for determining a match or nonmatch for different oil residues present in some environmental samples. A combination high-resolution gas chromatography and mass spectrometry, visual comparison and self-normalizing fingerprint indexes (SFI) were utilized to establish eight petroleum biomarkers for oil spill identification and assessment.