Occurrence of BTEX from petroleum hydrocarbons in surface water, sediment, and biota from Ubeji Creek of Delta State, Ni
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RESEARCH ARTICLE
Occurrence of BTEX from petroleum hydrocarbons in surface water, sediment, and biota from Ubeji Creek of Delta State, Nigeria Gbolahan Iyiola Asejeje 1 & Ayodele Rotimi Ipeaiyeda 1 & Percy Chuks Onianwa 1 Received: 6 April 2020 / Accepted: 9 October 2020 # Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature 2020
Abstract Petroleum exploration and production activities pose great threat worldwide in the marine environment with numerous occurrences of spills every year. Ubeji Creek in Nigeria suffers environmental pollution attributable to petroleum exploration. The hydrocarbons in petroleum encompass a large number of toxicants such as BTEX, which are frequently discharged into water bodies during spillage. In terms of scope, this study assessed for the first time BTEX levels in surface water, sediment, and biota of the Ubeji Creek. Environmental samples were collected at designated sampling locations along the Ubeji Creek quarterly for 2 years. Water quality was determined in situ, while BTEX levels in water, sediment, and biota were assessed in the laboratory using GC-FID. The physico-chemical characteristics of water were within the acceptable WHO limits with the exception of DO of 3.01 ± 0.25 mg/L. Organic pollution load could have contributed to the depression of DO level below the limit. BTEX of 5.57 ± 0.62 mg/kg in sediment samples was higher than the level in control sample. The BTEX levels in fish, shrimps, pawpaw fruit, pineapple tissue, bitter leaf, and cassava were 0.37 ± 0.05, 0.39 ± 0.01, 0.56 ± 0.02, 1.35 ± 0.04, 0.46 ± 0.06, and 0.22 ± 0.01 mg/kg, respectively. Accumulation of BTEX in this biota can affect their nutritive quality and consequently pose threat to humans who daily consume them. Keywords Petroleum exploration . Volatile organic compounds . Food BTEX composition . Oil spillage . Aquatic life . Water pollution
Introduction Petroleum exploration and production activities result in the introduction of organic compounds into the environment particularly water bodies that receive it in large proportion (Boehm and Fiest 1982). The monocyclic aromatic compounds, benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene, and three forms of xylenes (o, m, p) commonly referred to as BTEX, are volatile organic compounds (VOC) which frequently co-occur. The BTEX are important compounds among the VOCs, constituting major components of petrochemicals found in the crude oil (An 2004; Belpaire and Goemans 2007). A number of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons and organochlorine Responsible Editor: Philippe Garrigues * Ayodele Rotimi Ipeaiyeda [email protected] 1
Department of Chemistry, University of Ibadan, Ibadan, Oyo, Nigeria
compounds do occur in the naphtha fraction of crude oil (Choudhry et al. 1982; Fan et al. 2011; Lerner et al. 2012). BTEX compounds are of importance due to their contamination of soil, surface, and ground water following the release of petroleum products or derivatives. BTEX contamination have typically been reported near petroleum and natural gas production sites, petrol stations
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