Simultaneous analysis of sulfolane and BTEX in rock samples by gas chromatography–mass spectrometry
Why this work is in the frame
A frame that forgets how it found something cannot be audited. These are the routes that admitted this work.
Bibliographic record
Abstract
• Sulfolane is a stable, mobile industrial solvent with environmental concerns. • BTEX are frequently present at sites contaminated with sulfolane. • A GC-MS method with microwave-assisted extraction was optimized for rapid analysis. • Method reproducibility, recovery, and sulfolane stability in methanol were confirmed. • The method was applied to 109 field-derived rock samples from Alberta, Canada. Sulfolane is a water-miscible industrial solvent that has been widely utilized in various industries. Once released into the environment, it can infiltrate fractured rock structures in groundwater zones, leading to long-term contamination. Benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene, and xylenes (collectively known as BTEX) are commonly associated with sulfolane in the petrochemical industry. The presence and mobility of sulfolane can influence the distribution and transport behavior of BTEX at contaminated sites. Therefore, simultaneous analysis and monitoring of these compounds are crucial for understanding the source and fate of contamination. In this study, a gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS) method was developed and validated for the simultaneous quantitation of sulfolane and BTEX in rock samples. To address the slow release of sulfolane observed in certain samples when left in methanol and to facilitate rapid analysis, a microwave-assisted extraction (MAE) method was optimized for sample preparation. Analysis of spiked samples yielded recoveries of 86% to 115% for the various analytes, with relative standard deviations of up to 7.9%. The validated method was then applied to rock samples collected from a contaminated site in central Alberta, Canada. All analyzed samples were contaminated with toluene. Only one sample was found to be contaminated with sulfolane. Ethylbenzene, o- xylene, m / p- xylene, and benzene, were detected in 82%, 44%, 40%, and 4% of the samples, respectively. Although the concentrations of these contaminants were all below the Alberta Tier 1 Soil Remediation Guidelines, the sampling covered only a limited depth. Therefore, additional sampling and investigation are necessary to conclusively determine the status of persistent contamination at the site.
Fetched live from OpenAlex and de-inverted. Abstracts are not stored in this database: the inverted indexes are 8.6 GB of the frame’s 9.3 GB of text, and the host has 13 GB free.
Full frame distilled prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. Learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and 10,348 direct Gemma labels. Candidate is the union of thresholded teacher heads; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels or direct frontier model labels.
Codex and Gemma teacher scores by category
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.002 | 0.001 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.002 | 0.004 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from it