Identification of traces of oil contamination of biogenic sediments by solid-phase extraction combined with thin layer chromatography

Abstract

The possibility of identifying industry-related traces of oil contamination in biogenic sediments is investigated on an example of model oil-contaminated peat samples. It is shown that oil pollution of <1 wt % in biogenic samples cannot be identified using a conventional IR spectrometric procedure. An additional study of organic extracts, isolated in sample preparation, by solid-phase extraction and thin layer chromatography can detect specific oil aromatic hydrocarbons in contaminated samples uncharacteristic for background samples of the same type.