Fluorescence of water-soluble components of oils and petroleum products forming the oil pollution of waters

The problem of monitoring the pollution of waters with oils and petroleum products is not only to monitor these pollutions, but it also involves the inspection of their variations in the environment associated with chemical transformations of hydrocarbons of oils and petroleum products due to natural factors. Absorption, excitation, and fluorescence spectra of model solutions of various oils and petroleum products in distilled water were previously investigated. It was shown that, upon a model pollution of waters, aromatic hydrocarbons of oils and petroleum products are dissolved first. The absorption spectra of model solutions are generally structureless. In the majority of cases, there is a diffuse maximum at 210-220 nm and, sometimes, very weak absorption with a maximum at 260 nm. The fluorescence excitation spectra of model solutions of oils and petroleum products are structured and, as a rule, exhibit two or three excitation maxima. Fluorescence in the range 400-420 nm, which is apparently associated with the presence of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons in relatively large amounts, was observed in a number of cases. More recently, we investigated the changes in the optical properties of water-soluble components of oils and petroleum products under photooxidation conditions. It was shown that the following spectralmore » changes take place after the photooxidation of model solutions of petroleums and petroleum products: the absorption band at 210-230 nm completely disappears and unstructured absorption in the near UV region is amplified; the maxima in the excitation fluorescence spectrum are shifted toward longer wave lengths and the maximum intensities are redistributed; and all fluorescence samples, after photooxidation, are in the violet region of the visible spectrum. The study of real petroleum-containing samples, namely, waste waters of Moscow oil refining factory, represents the continuation of above researches and the aim of the present work.« less