Assessing petroleum oils biodegradation by chemometric analysis of spectroscopic data

This study was conducted to classify petroleum oils in terms of their biodegradation stage by using spectroscopic analysis associated to chemometric treatments. Principal Component Analysis (PCA) has been applied on infrared and UV fluorescence spectra of Brazilian and Pyrenean oils. For Brazil samples, the method allowed to distinguish the biodegraded oils from the non-affected ones. Pyrenean sampling including oils at different levels of biodegradation has been chosen to follow their alteration rate.PCA loadings have shown spectral regions which have differentiated oils after biodegradation whereas Simple-to-use Interactive Self-Modelling Mixture Analysis (SIMPLISMA) has permitted to obtain a repartition in terms of components families (saturated, aromatic and polar ones) characterizing chemical composition of oils at different biodegradation degrees. Results are in good agreement with conclusions of usual hydrocarbon biomarker analysis.