Assessment of Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons (PAHs) Distribution in Water, Sediments and Fish Parts from Ponds in Ado-Ekiti, Nigeria

Abstract

The study assessed the contamination status of a fish pond with the view of offering insight on the accumulative features of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) in the sediments and fish parts. The PAHs were extracted and cleaned up on activated alumina adsorbent. A gas chromatograph coupled with flame ionization detector (FID) was used to quantify the compounds. In general, the sediments were more concentrated in the analyzed PAHs than the water samples. Low (3.51–24.7%) spatial distribution existed in the PAHs level as revealed in the calculated CV%. Fluoranthene, pyrene and anthracene were most concentrated compounds in the fish. The PAHs percentage load ratio of 34.9:34.2:30.9 were observed in the muscle, head and liver, respectively. Acenaphtylene, acenaphthene, indeno(1,2,3-cd)pyrene and dibenzo(a,h)anthracene were highly accumulated in the sediments as compared to other samples, while fluorene and benzo(k)fluoranthene showed the least and highest accumulated PAHs respectively in all the fish parts.

Keywords:

• Bioaccumulation
• extract
• fish pond
• gas chromatography