Brief Summary

• Chemical characterisation of a soil contaminated with aviation fuel oil represents a vital step in the development of an effective remediation strategy.
• Information on the chemical composition of such complex mixtures is used, as part of a risk assessment, to assess the toxicity and subsequently identify the most suitable technology for treatment.
• Currently, analyses of these complex samples is conducted using standard protocols based on gas chromatography with flame ionisation (GC-FID) or in a few cases mass spectrometry (GC-MS).
• A common feature of gas chromatograms (GC) of soil contaminated fuel oil samples, especially when weathered, is the presence of an unresolved complex mixture (UCM).
• The UCM concentration typically far exceeds the concentrations of the limited number of individual priority pollutants which conventional methods can characterise.
• In the present study we report the application of comprehensive gas chromatography-time of flight-mass spectrometry (GCxGC-ToF-MS) for the analysis of a soil sample taken from a site contaminated by aviation fuel oil.

Download the complete poster as an A4 pdf file.