Monitoring of pollution in Egyptian Red Sea

The level of the Egyptian Red Sea water pollution by oil was studied to assess the general pattern of oil pollutants and to evaluate the hydrocarbon origin (anthropogenic, petrogenic or biogenic) with emphasis on the poly aromatic hydrocarbons in surface water. The oil extracted from the samples was analyzed by gas chromatography to determine the concentrations and distribution of aliphatic and alicyclic n-alkanes. Results obtained indicate that most of the organic species present in water samples consist of petrogenic hydrocarbons with additional biogenic types. High performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) technique was used to study the poly aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) fingerprints of the studied water samples. The results obtained indicate the presence of PAHs of both pyrogenic and petrogenic origins.