Alkyl PAHs/Alkanes

What are alkyl PAHs and alkanes?

Understanding what type of fuel you’re dealing with at your site can be critical in determining your best course of corrective action. Eurofins can provide you with the analysis and expert interpretation of your samples with the incomplete combustion of unknown petroleum products.

Alkylated Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons (PAHs) are characterized by the total number of alkyl carbon atoms present on the parent PAH compound. They are more abundant and persist for a longer time in the environment than the parent PAHs. Therefore, it is suggested that alkyl homolog concentrations should be combined with its parent concentration when performing risk assessments.

PAHs and alkylated PAHs can also be used in forensic analyses when presented as histograms that visually represent the relative target analyte concentrations for the purpose of qualitatively fingerprinting a petroleum sample. Crude oils contain primarily Alkylated PAHs and relatively small concentrations of the unsubstituted parent PAHs.

Eurofins performs PAH Testing using GC/FID Method SW-846 8015B from C8-C40 to identify the extractable petroleum products in soil, water and natural fuels and compare your sample chromatogram against our petroleum standard reference library.

What are biomarkers of PAHs and alkylated PAHs?

Biomarkers are complex organic compounds composed of carbon, hydrogen and other elements that are found in petroleum. They show little to no change in structure from their parent molecules found in living organisms, are unique to each source of petroleum and have been well documented.

Eurofins analyzes biomarkers, including terpanes, steranes and triaromatic steroids and provides the data in a format that can be used by petroleum experts to evaluate possible sources for the contamination. The biomarkers are often used in conjunction with other site data such as PAHs, alkylated PAHs and alkanes to determine the source of contamination.
What analytical methods can support testing for alkanes, isoprenoids and standard hydrocarbons?
Similar in scope to ASTM simulated distillation methods, our detailed aliphatic hydrocarbon profile, along with isoprenoid information and pristine/phytane (C17/C18) ratios are valuable tools that can assist in the characterization of crude oil either as a reference source or an environmental contaminant.

Eurofins provides analysis of water, salt water, soil, sediment, product and tissue samples for alkanes, TPH/SHC/DRO and isoprenoids using GC/FID SW-846 8015, including:

• nC9to nC40
• Total TPH (C9-C40)
• Total SHC
• DRO (C10-C28)
• Total Resolved SHC (C9-C40)
• 2,6,10-Trimethyldodecane (1380)
• 2,6,10-Trimethyltridecane (1470)
• 2,6,10-Trimethylpentadecane (1650)
• Pristane
• Phytane

For a complete list of GC/MS 8270 PAHs, Alkyl PAHs and Biomarkers, contact us.

Choose Eurofins for your unknown petroleum products analysis and forensic testing projects.