Determination of the concentrations of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) and polychlorobiphenyls (PCBs) in the port of Jounieh, Lebanon

Abstract

Water and sediment pollution is a growing environmental issue. Organic pollutants are transferred to the water environmental compartment by different human activities, including shipping, oil spills, coastal oil industries, agriculture, fertilizers and fossil fuel combustion. These pollutants can then be transported to the sediments during their formation. As a result, these pollutants become part of the sediments. In Lebanon, only a few studies were done on the characterization of organic pollutants in the sediments. The objective of this project is to identify, determine, and analyze the concentration of organic pollutants, in particular Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons (PAHs) and polychlorobiphenyl (PCBs), in the port of Jounieh. In order to accomplish this study, several steps were done: pre-sampling, sediment sampling, lyophilization, Soxhlet extraction, rotary evaporation and gas chromatography. The total PAHs concentrations ranged from 2.49μg/kg to 731μg/kg dry weight, while the concentrations of PCBswere between 3819 μg/kg to 21905 μg/kg. Both petrogenic and pyrogenic activities were detected in the port of Jounieh, but the pyrogenic activities dominated over the petrogenic activities in most of the samples. Pyrogenic activities are often linked to incomplete fuel combustion, while petrogenic source of pollution can be associated to petroleum related activities, such as oil spills.