Analysis of saturated biomarkers and polycyclic aromatic compounds in forensic applications of oil spill to the environment using GC×GC-qTOFMS and chemometrics

• Grant number: 16/18453-0
• Support type: Scholarships abroad - Research Internship - Post-doctor
• Effective date (Start): April 01, 2017
• Effective date (End): December 22, 2017
• Field of knowledge: Physical Sciences and Mathematics - Chemistry - Analytical Chemistry
• Principal researcher: Fabio Augusto
• Grantee: Guilherme Lionello Alexandrino
• Supervisor abroad: Jan H. Christensen
• Home Institution: Instituto de Química (IQ). Universidade Estadual de Campinas (UNICAMP). Campinas , SP, Brazil
• Research place: University of Copenhagen, Frederiksberg, Denmark
• Associated to the scholarship: 15/08201-0 - Petroleomics: an approach using comprehensive Two-Dimension gas chromatography coupled with mass spectrometry and chemometrics, BP.PD

Abstract

Petroleum is the main source energy in the world, and its extraction, transportation and use inevitably causes release to the environment. Since most of the oil spills comes from continuous release to the ecosystems, investigations about the input sources and environmental impacts are important. Oil spill investigations aims to determine oil-source correlations, the diagenetic/pyrogenetic origins of the spilled oils as well as their weathering levels. This project proposes the use of the enhanced chromatographic tool: comprehensive two-dimensional gas chromatography - quadrupole time-of-flight mass spectrometry (GC×GC-qTOFMS); coupled with chemometrics to perform more effective oil spill investigations. This has come in need for specific cases of types of oil spills, where the spilled oils are closely related, or in cases where spilled oils do not contain compounds that are commonly used in the conventional forensic case (this is especially relevant for diesel spills, where common petroleum biomarkers are not present). The proposed strategy (GC×GC-qTOFMS and chemometric data analysis) must overcome the inherent analytical limitation of the 1D GC-MS for forensic environmental applications, also exploiting the advantages of the multivariate analysis when handling complex matrices such as crude oils and petroleum derivatives. Method performance will be evaluated on descriptive power of the model including, but not limited to, explained variance of the data set, method uncertainties, method robustness and practical feasibility.

Scientific publications

(References retrieved automatically from Web of Science and SciELO through information on FAPESP grants and their corresponding numbers as mentioned in the publications by the authors)

ALEXANDRINO, GUILHERME L.; MALMBORG, JONAS; AUGUSTO, FABIO; CHRISTENSEN, JAN H. Investigating weathering in light diesel oils using comprehensive two-dimensional gas chromatography-High resolution mass for spectrometry and pixel-based analysis: Possibilities and limitations. Journal of Chromatography A, v. 1591, p. 155-161, APR 26 2019. Web of Science Citations: 2.

ALEXANDRINO, GUILHERME L.; TOMASI, GIORGIO; KIENHUIS, PAUL G. M.; AUGUSTO, FABIO; CHRISTENSEN, JAN H. Forensic Investigations of Diesel Oil Spills in the Environment Using Comprehensive Two-Dimensional Gas Chromatography-High Resolution Mass Spectrometry and Chemometrics: New Perspectives in the Absence of Recalcitrant Biomarkers. Environmental Science & Technology, v. 53, n. 1, p. 550-559, JAN 1 2019. Web of Science Citations: 5.