Comparative Analytical Data in the Source Determination of Unknown Spilled Oil in the Haydarpasa Port (Marmara Sea), Turkey

Abstract

The coasts of the Marmara Sea are continually affected by heavy crude oil and heavy fuel oil pollution. In addition to coastal pollution, some point sources such as ports and oil terminals have serious effects. The Haydarpasa Port is the most important port situated on the Anatolian side of the Strait of Istanbul (Bosphorus). It has two breakwaters about 1,700 and 600 m long. The pollution of the maritime, coastal, and harbor environments continues to be an issue around the globe. In the Haydarpas¸a Port, fuel oil spillage from ships and vehicles and conventional shipping activities such as tank cleaning and de-ballasting operations and bilge wastewaters are the main sources of PAHs in the vicinity. All crude oils and petroleum products, to some extent, have chemical compositions that differ from each other. This variability in chemical compositions results in unique chemical fingerprints for each oil and provides a basis for identifying the source(s) of the spilled oil (Wang 2003). In recent years, numerous studies concerned with the origin type, fate, and behavior of spilled oils in various environments have been published. Great advances have been made on both interpretive and analytical methods for fingerprinting oil hydrocarbons. Flexible, tiered analytical approaches, which facilitate the detailed compositional analyses based primarily upon GC/MS has been developed in response to the oil spill identification (Wang 2003). An important discovery is that the diagnostic indices in a vessel’s bilge contents and its discharges could also constitute fingerprints for the ships. In so that, by comparing the fingerprints of different spilled oils with the material from the bilges of ships, it would be possible to determine the source of spill oil. In this study, SUVF and GC/MS analysis were used to characterize the chemical composition of the unknown oil spilled from the Haydarpas¸a Port by using advanced fingerprinting techniques and diagnostic ratios.