Fourteen polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) included in the US Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) priority pollutant list were analyzed using gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC--MS). Surface water sampling was undertaken in the Paraguaçu Estuary (Bahia), northern Brazil. Total PAH concentrations varied from 0.0029 to 0.1079 ng/L in the surface waters (main rivers, tributaries) with a mean value of 0.0344 ng/L. Such concentrations can be taken as background values for the studied region. The PAH profiles were dominated by low molecular weight PAHs (two- and three-ring components) in surface water samples. It indicated that PAHs in surface water may have its origin from oil or sewage contamination (petrogenic input). The collected data showed that petrogenic input was predominant at almost all the stations investigated. To discriminate pattern differences and similarities among the samples, a principal component analysis (PCA) was performed using a correlation matrix. PCA revealed the latent relationships among all the surface water from the investigated stations.
Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs); surface water; source; gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS); principal component analysis (PCA)
