Rapid analysis of spilled petroleum oils by direct analysis in real time time‑of‑flight mass spectrometry with hydrophobic paper sample collection
- Download(s)
- DOI
- Language of the publication
- English
- Date
- 2024-08-27
- Type
- Article
- Author(s)
- Rabinovitch, Lola
- Saturos, Genesis
- McCallum, Paige
- Kwok, Honoria
- Yan, Jeffrey
- Filewood, Taylor
- Cody, Robert
- Brunswick, Pamela
- Shang, Dayue
- Publisher
- Springer Nature
Alternative title
Analyse directe rapide des produits pétroliers déversés par spectrométrie de masse à temps de vol en temps réel avec prélèvement d’échantillons sur papier hydrophobe
Abstract
Background Oil spills are widespread and can cause devastating environmental consequences. Rapid oil identification is critical to find the origin of the spill, monitor the environment, and lead to informed mitigation measures. The current standard methods in oil spill identification are precise and reliable, but require extensive sample preparation, long instrument runs, and time-consuming data processing. Direct analysis in real time time-of-flight mass spectrometry (DART-ToF MS) has been employed to screen for spilled petroleum oils, with results obtained in mere hours. The present study introduced an innovative, simple, and fast oil sampling method using hydrophobic filter paper and demonstrated its compatibility with DART-ToF MS analysis. Motor oils, jet fuels, marine diesels, crude oils, intermediate fuel oils, heavy fuel oils, and diluted bitumen were collected using the filter paper sampling method. Classification models were constructed from the spectral data by heat map inspection followed by principal component analysis (PCA) and discriminant analysis of principal components (DAPC). Oil slicks and weathered oil slicks were prepared from five oil types, and samples from each slick were collected using filter paper. Results The filter paper technique allowed for effective oil sampling and data acquisition by DART-ToF MS for diluted source oils, oil slicks and weathered oil slicks. Classification via the constructed DAPC models indicated that the DART-ToF MS instrument in tandem with filter paper sampling and multivariate statistics can accurately identify common oil types, with significant improvement of sample collection and turnaround time. Conclusions The promising classification results, simple sample collection, and rapid data analysis illustrate the potential use of hydrophobic filter paper and DART-ToF MS as tools in managing large scale oil spill emergency situations.
Plain language summary
The Pacific-Yukon Laboratory for Environmental Testing Organic Section has been developing alternative methods to the traditional gas chromatography/mass spectrometry (GC/MS)-based oil spill identification protocol. An innovative improvement to the method is the use of hydrophobic filter paper for simple and fast oil sampling. Microcosm experiments have demonstrated the successful application of this sampling technique to weathered motor oils, marine diesels, crude oils, heavy fuel oils, and diluted bitumen. Furthermore, recent results showed that the same approach is effective for plant-based oils. The novel paper sample collection technique is advantageous over glass bottle-based sampling in terms of convenience in the field, ease of transportation of the collected oiled paper, and compatibility with the direct analysis in real-time mass spectrometry (DART/ToF-MS). In fact, the paper sample can be directly analyzed by DART/ToF-MS, its data processed quickly, and a report subsequently generated within a day, illustrating the potential of this approach as a powerful tool in dealing with large-scale oil spill emergency situations.
Subject
- Oil spills,
- Petroleum,
- Identification
Rights
Pagination
16 pages
Peer review
Yes
Open access level
Gold
Identifiers
- ISSN
- 2193-2697
Article
- Journal title
- Environmental Systems Research
- Journal volume
- 13
- Article number
- 34
- Accepted date
- 2024-07-17
- Submitted date
- 2024-05-31