Oil is a primary source of energy worldwide. However, the use of oil produces large amounts of pollutants, which are detrimental to the environment. The presence of petroleum hydrocarbons in soil is a critical marker of environmental pollution and safety. Rapid on-site detection technology has been broadly used in emergency tracking, offering critical information support for effective reactions to environmental emergencies. Thus, it is expected to play an increasingly critical role in environmental remediation efforts. The current approach for petroleum hydrocarbon detection in soil mainly involves Soxhlet extraction with a combination of solvents, including acetone and n-hexane. The samples are then analyzed after rotary evaporation, dehydration with anhydrous sodium sulfate, and purification using a magnesium silica-type adsorbent. Unfortunately, this approach requires sample analysis to be performed in the laboratory, which is tedious and time consuming, and consumes large amounts of solvents. Moreover, the rotary evaporator is not portable. Therefore, this method is not appropriate for the rapid on-site detection of petroleum hydrocarbons. In this study, a rapid on-site detection method based on silica-gel dehydration and cyclohexane extraction was developed for the extraction and pretreatment of petroleum hydrocarbons (C10-C40) in soil. First, an appropriate amount of silica gel was added to the soil, and the mixture was completely ground to eliminate moisture. Next, petroleum hydrocarbons were extracted with 40 mL of cyclohexane, and the extract was cleaned by Florisil solid-phase extraction (SPE) column elution. Finally, the samples were analyzed by gas chromatography (GC) to evaluate the above method. The silica gel exhibited optimal adsorption properties compared with anhydrous sodium sulfate, calcium oxide, and molecular sieves, with recovery of 87.5%. The effects of different soil water content (5%, 10%, and 20%) and silica gel (1, 3, 5, and 10 times the moisture content) dosage on the extraction of petroleum hydrocarbons were investigated. The recoveries of petroleum hydrocarbons increased from 74.0% to 103.8% after 15 min of invasive extraction (relative standard deviation, RSD, <10.1%) when silica gel amounting to 10 times the moisture content was used. Five types of silica gels with different properties were purchased from four manufacturers, and the effects of these silica gels on the dehydration and extraction efficiency of petroleum hydrocarbons in soil were assessed. The results showed that amorphous silica gel led to low recoveries (<60%), spherical silica gel achieved extraction efficiencies of approximately 70%-90%, and alkaline silica gel produced recoveries with poor precision. Therefore, neutral spherical silica gel was used for further experiments. The fingerprints of petroleum hydrocarbons with different carbon numbers are an important reference for identifying pollution sources. Thus, ensuring good recoveries throughout the entire carbon range is necessary to ensure the accuracy of the fingerprint analysis results. The proposed method showed good recoveries for petroleum hydrocarbons of all carbon numbers (75%-101%). The findings above indicate that the developed method could be an efficient means to extract petroleum hydrocarbons from soil for both total quantity and fingerprint analyses. Compared with standard methods, the proposed method requires lower solvent dosages and features simpler processing steps. Another advantage of this method is that it does not require the use of highly toxic halogenated solvents; thus, it does not contribute to environmental pollution. It can be applied to the laboratory analysis of soil petroleum hydrocarbons and coupled with other rapid on-site detection techniques for soil petroleum hydrocarbons, such as infrared spectroscopy and portable GC. However, because it does not include a concentration process, the developed method exhibits relatively low sensitivity. In the future, we plan to develop a simple and flexible on-site sample-concentration system to further improve various indicators of this method.
石油作为全球主要能源之一,所带来的环境污染越来越严重。土壤中的石油烃是环保监测的重要组成部分。现有土壤中石油烃检测的主流方法是以丙酮与正己烷的混合溶剂进行提取,旋蒸后利用无水硫酸钠去除残余水分,再用硅镁型吸附剂净化后进行下一步检测。现有方法步骤繁琐,耗时长,需消耗大量有机溶剂,且旋蒸设备不具便携性,难以应用于现场分析。土壤中石油烃提取的关键在于有效去除土壤中的水分。本工作通过对现有标准方法和文献方法的优化和改进,建立了一种新的土壤中石油烃(C10~C40)的前处理方法:硅胶脱水-环己烷提取。其具体步骤是在土壤样品中加入硅胶,经过混合研磨脱除土壤中的水分,然后采用环己烷浸泡提取、Florisil固相小柱净化,即可进行测试。以气相色谱对该方法进行了系统测评,实验结果表明当加入土壤实际含水质量10倍的硅胶、以40 mL环己烷浸泡提取15 min时,能够获得较满意的提取效果。本方法的回收率为74.1%~103.8%,相对标准偏差(RSD)为1.7%~10.1%。本方法简化了样品前处理步骤,减少了有毒溶剂的使用,降低了对环境的污染,提高了工作效率,不仅可用于石油烃的实验室分析,也为石油烃现场快速分析奠定了良好基础。
Keywords: gas chromatography (GC); petroleum hydrocarbon; sample pretreatment; silica gel; soil.