Application of comprehensive two-dimensional gas chromatography for the assessment of oil contaminated soils

A crucial step in the remediation of oil contaminated soils is the characterization of the pollution. Information on the chemical composition is used to assess the toxicity (and thus the need for remediation) and to determine the most appropriate technology for treatment. Mostly these analyses are carried out in routine environmental laboratories using gas chromatography with flame ionization detection (GC/FID) based on a protocol developed by the Total Petroleum Hydrocarbon Criteria Working Group (TPHCWG). In the present study, an alternative method was developed using comprehensive two-dimensional gas chromatography (GCXGC) with FID. Sample preparation was limited to pressurized liquid extraction (PLE), and the analysis was carried out on a commercially available instrument with a conventional column combination (RTX-1/BPX50) and with standard chromatographic software. Compared to the TPH method, the group-types in the GCXGC analysis are chemically better defined and more specific information is obtained especially for the (toxicologically important) aromatic hydrocarbon fraction. Preliminary results indicate that higher recoveries and lower RSDs are obtained with GCXGC, probably because of the less complex sample preparation. Furthermore a data processing method was developed to generate TPH results from GCXGC data; the volatility distribution profiles compared very well with conventional TPH data. The possibility of extracting physicochemical properties directly from the GCXGC chromatogram was briefly explored, but software limitations hindered this promising application.