摘要：Northwestern Gulf of Suez is a well-known region for coastal petroleum refineries. Industrial discharges release organic contaminants which might affect the quality of receiving water and threaten aquatic life. In this work, concentrations of Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons (PAHs) were measured in the soil in order to evaluate their quality and characteristics. To examine the potential toxicity of sediments by PAHs contaminant, eight composite sediment samples were randomly collected using an American auger around the point 29°57 33" N and 32°3040" E in 2012 and covered an area of 2500 m2 which represents nearly 1/15 of total plant area (the total area of the plant is approximately 3.250 km2). For the examined samples, the Total Petroleum Hydrocarbons (TPHs) were separated from the soil. A portion of TPH was subjected to column chromatography using silica gel as stationary phase (re-activated at 180°C for 4 h). The first solvent was n-hexane for elution of saturates while the second was benzene to obtain aromatics which are subjected to High Performance Liquid Chromatography (HPLC). The examined sediment samples exhibited diverse concentrations of ΣPAHs equal to 47.23, 18.73, 107.23, 10.36, 16.64, 12.24, 67.11 and 33.84 ppm, respectively.
