Using n-alkanes for identification of oils in domestic wastewaters

The aim of this work was to investigate whether linear aliphatic hydrocarbons had a usable potential for the determination of waste oil in wastewater. For that, n-alkanes analyses of wastewater samples from five sampling points (P1-P5) of the sewage system of Konya-Turkey were carried out by gas chromatographic technique and the parameters of carbon predominance index (ICP), n-C17/n-C18 and unresolved complex mixture (UCM)/n-alkanes ratios were determined. It was found that sampling points P1, P2, and P3, which had ICP values 1.52 +/- 0.04, 1.43 +/- 0.05 and 1.12 +/- 0.05, respectively, were polluted with petroleum hydrocarbons and the aliphatic hydrocarbons detected in the sampling points of P4 and P5, which had ICP values of 0.96 +/- 0.05 and 0.95 +/- 0.03, respectively, were from natural origin. These results were also supported by the parameters of n-C17/n-C18 and UCM/n-alkanes ratios and by the correlation between the parameters of ICP, n-C17/n-C18, UCM/n-alkanes and COD, Pb, Cr for all sampling points.