I am working with sediment soil for which I found the LC 50 as 15% using earth worm actue toxicity study. However when I checked for the PAH and phenols i found only trace amount .I want know which compound is responsible for this toxicity. Thank you
Did you check for heavy metals content of the sediment? I strongly suggest you look that up.
Dear Godswill,
to answer yor question, I need more informaion. there are meny substances which are ailable in soil/sediment are toxic to soil organizm. Sometime, It may heavy metals (such As Hg, Cd, As) as mentiond above. But according to your information, this is a oil spilled sediment, therefore, sometime it may also not possible. Futher, if there are high quntity of oil and grease in sediment still, that is also affect the living organizm. So that my recomendation is you have to characterise sediment starting from basic parametrs to PCB etc.
Piyal Aravinna
Godswill J. Udom Thank you sir for your suggestion i will check for the concentration of heavy metals.
A. G. Piyal Aravinna Sir Is they any possibility to find these compounds by GC MS with the total hydrocarbons extraction protocol. The odour of the soil reflect the presence of the oil sediments and it causes skin irritation even when we use glooves. We checked for the pH which is around 5.3.
Dear Karanam Abiram
Generally, PAHs has low degree of acute toxicity to humans. It's predominant toxicity endpoint is cancer. Increased incidences of lung, skin, and bladder cancers are associated with occupational exposure to PAHs.
Note that exposure to PAHs are always in mixtures rather than in singlet form. Thus it is difficult to say categorically if there is another compound more toxic than PAHs in your soil specimen. Again, I'll suggest you review the individual PAH content of your sample to know which is mostly present. Determine the heavy metals content and health risk assessment study. These will give a leadway link to the observed health/toxicity concerns. Hope this was helpful.
Thank you.