Simultaneous extraction and fractionation of petroleum biomarkers from tar balls and crude oils using a two-step sequential supercritical fluid extraction. (October 2020)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Falsafi, Zohreh; Raofie, Farhad; Kazemi, Hojjat; Ariya, Parisa A.
• Is Part Of: Marine pollution bulletin. Volume 159(2020)
• Publication Date: 2020-10
• Subjects: Supercritical fluid extraction -- Fractionation -- Tar ball -- Crude oil -- Biomarker; Marine pollution -- Periodicals; Marine Biology -- Periodicals; Water Pollution -- Periodicals; Mer -- Pollution -- Périodiques; Publications périodiques; Pollution des mers; Lutte antipollution; Electronic journals; 363.7394
• DOI: 10.1016/j.marpolbul.2020.111484
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0025-326X

Abstract

Abstract: In this study a novel sustainable method based on supercritical fluid extraction (SFE) method was developed for simultaneous extraction and fractionation of petroleum biomarkers. We herein proposed a two-step supercritical fluid extraction method for crude oil and tar ball to separate the petroleum biomarkers into aliphatic and aromatic fractions. In the first step, pure scCO2 was used, while scCO2 modified was used as a solvent in the subsequent step. CO2 SFE can serve as an environmental-friendly alternative to common column chromatography method for petroleum biomarker or compositional analysis by GC–MS. The extraction process was shown to be selective, according to the polarity of the solvent, providing fractionation of aliphatic and aromatic hydrocarbons. Yet the total extraction procedure in SFE was significantly faster than column chromatography methods (~80 min vs. 8 h). We will discuss the implications of this SFE method as a novel sustainable alternative to the existing extraction techniques. Graphical abstract: Unlabelled Image Highlights: CO2 -SFE can be an alternative to column chromatography method for biomarkers analysis. Sequential extraction was carried out in two steps using scCO2 and modified scCO2 . The SFE process was selective according to polarity of the solvent. Saturate and aromatic biomarkers were extracted at different supercritical conditions. Most of CO2 SFE non-extractable components are not suitable for GC analysis.