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

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Abstract

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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Acknowledgments

The authors are grateful for the financial support provided by the National Natural Science Foundation of China as a general project (grant no. 31170473) and the Ministry of Science and Technology, People’s Republic of China, as a major project (grant no. 2013AA06A205). We would also like to thank the anonymous reviewers of our manuscript.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Key Laboratory of Pollution Processes and Environmental Criteria (Ministry of Education), College of Environmental Science and Engineering, Nankai University, Tianjin, 300071, China

    Yong Teng, Qixing Zhou, Xinyu Miao & Yuming Chen

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  1. Yong Teng
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  2. Qixing Zhou
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  3. Xinyu Miao
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  4. Yuming Chen
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Correspondence to Qixing Zhou.

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Responsible editor: Zhihong Xu

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Teng, Y., Zhou, Q., Miao, X. et al. Assessment of soil organic contamination in a typical petrochemical industry park in China. Environ Sci Pollut Res 22, 10227–10234 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-015-4219-y

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-015-4219-y

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