Distribution of petroleum hydrocarbons in aquaculture fish from selected locations in the Straits of Malacca, Malaysia

A study has been conducted at selected locations along the Straits of Malacca on twelve aquaculture fish samples to determine the level of hydrocarbon pollution in the fishes. The homogenized fish tissues were extracted using soxhlet, fractionated and analyzed by using GCMS. Hopanes and PAHs were detected and were found in the range of 57.59 to 9610.31 ng/g (dry weight). Two samples were identified as Sumatera originated while the source for other samples cannot be determined. Additionally, ratio MP/P was used to determine the anthropogenic PAHs sources where six stations were found to be polluted by petrogenic sources while the other six stations were from pyrogenic sources. The MP/P ratio shows strong positive correlation with total PAHs with an r2 value of 0.79. Further analysis is needed in order to identify the sources of oil pollution in ten fish samples with unidentified oil sources

Distribution and sources of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) in surface sediment samples collected in South China Sea

Petroleum pollution is one of the pollution that needs serious attention from world. Petroleum is worldwide used and introduced to aquatic environment through accidental oil spill, discharge from routine tanker operations. In other case, land based pollutants are contributed by rainfall and runoff waters. Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) are one of the major compounds in petroleum known as the most widespread organic pollutants. PAHs diagnostic rations applied in this study to identify the anthropogenic sources of PAH; petrogenic and pyrogenic. Thirty surface sediment samples were collected from South China Sea adjacent to the coast of Peninsular Malaysia using Ekcman Dredge sampler. The samples were extracted and fractionated prior to the analysis using gas chromatography- mass spectrometry (GC-MS) to quantify the concentration of PAHs. The total PAHs concentration of the marine sediment ranged from 0.0315x103 and 1.48x103 ng/g, dry weight. The concentration level of PAHs in the South China Sea is indicated as moderate to high contamination based on the global PAHs sedimentation records. Principal Component Analysis (PCA) in associated with Multiple Linear Regressions (MLR) has been performed to apportion PAHs sources in sediment samples. Seven factors and their percentages of contributions were identified based on PCA loadings of PAHs and were attributed to the following sources; (1) oil exploitation , 8.1%; (2) traffic emission, 43.8%; (3) road dust, 8.9%; (4) the spill of oil products, 3.6%; (5) unburned fossil fuels, 2.1%; (6) coal combustion, 10.2%; (7) oil combustion, 23.3%. The major source of anthropogenic PAHs pollution in the South China Sea is pyrogenic PAHs. This study should be conducted from time to time to monitor the concentration of PAHs in sediments