The use of diagnostic ratios, biomarkers and 3-way Kohonen neural networks to monitor the temporal evolution of oil spills.
Oil spill identification relies usually on a wealth of chromatographic data which requires advanced data treatment (chemometrics). A simple approach based on Kohonen neural networks to handle three-dimensional arrays is presented. A suite of 28 diagnostic ratios was considered to monitor six oils along four months. It was found that some traditional diagnostic ratios were not stable enough. In particular, alkylated PAHs (e.g. 1-methyldibenzothiophene, 4-methylpyrene, 27bbSTER and the TA21 and TA26 triaromatic steroids) seemed less resistant to medium-weathering than biomarkers. One (or two) ratios were found to differentiate each product: 30O, 28ab (and 25nor30ab), C3-dbt/C3-phe, 27Ts, TA26 and 29Ts characterized Ashtart, Brent, Maya, Sahara, IFO and Prestige oils, respectively.
Department of Plant and Environmental Sciences, University of Copenhagen, Thorvaldsensvej 40, 1871 Frederiksberg C, Denmark.
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R
Fernández-Varela
Grupo Química Analítica Aplicada (QANAP), Departamento de Química Analítica, Universidade da Coruña, Campus da Zapateira, 15071 A Coruña, Spain.
M P
MP
Gómez-Carracedo
Milano Chemometrics and QSAR Research Group, Department of Environmental and Earth Sciences, University of Milano-Bicocca, P.za della Scienza, 1-20126 Milano, Italy.
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D
Ballabio
Grupo Química Analítica Aplicada (QANAP), Departamento de Química Analítica, Universidade da Coruña, Campus da Zapateira, 15071 A Coruña, Spain. Electronic address: andrade@udc.es.
J M
JM
Andrade
D015415:Biomarkers / Q000032:analysis; D004784:Environmental Monitoring / Q000379:methods*; D016571:Neural Networks, Computer; D059392:Petroleum Pollution / Q000032:analysis* / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D011084:Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons / Q000032:analysis; D014876:Water Pollution / Q000032:analysis* / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D014887:Weather
D015415:Biomarkers; D011084:Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons
3-way Kohonen neural networks; Biomarkers; Diagnostic ratios; GC–MS; Oil spill fingerprint