Available free online at www.medjchem.com Mediterranean Journal of Chemistry 2016, 6(1), 654-657 *Corresponding author: Kasım Cemal Guven Received July 25 th , 2016 Email address: kcguven@yahoo.com.tr Accepted August 30 th , 2016 DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.13171/mjc61/01609151012/Guven Published September 15 th , 2016 A new technique for the solution of references problem in oil pollution measurement by UVF technique Kasım C. Guven 1, *, Esra Billur Balcıoğlu 2 , Bayram Ozturk 1 and Burak Coban 3 1 Turkish Marine Research Foundation (TUDAV), P.O. Box: 10, Beykoz, Istanbul, Turkey 2 Faculty of Fisheries, Istanbul University, Istanbul, Turkey 3 Department of Chemistry, Faculty of Arts and Sciences, Bulent Ecevit University, Zonguldak, Turkey Abstract: In this work, the problems of references used for oil pollution measurement by UVF method were discussed. The main problem of this method is that the origin of the reference for pollutant oil is unknown. The proposed solution for this problem was based on sea water sample which was taken from contaminated area, extracted by DCM, the organic phase was distilled, its calibration curve was plotted with this residue oil and measurement was made on its equation. The oil pollution results for the sea water of K 0 station by using this equation for 2013 was 15.21 mg/L and for 2014 15.25 mg/L. for the same samples determination of oil pollution by using crude oil references varies between 0.11 and 1.15 various crude oils and using chrysene reference 0.11- 0.19 mg/L. These results show that pollution level varied depending on references used. The proposed method more realistically determines the oil pollution level. The proposed technique is the first for oil pollution measurement by UVF. Keywords: UVF, references, sea water, chrysene, extracted oil. Introduction Oil pollution is an important problem in the sea water for the coastal countries while it is a big risk for the marine life. Various methods were used for the measurement of oil pollution in sea water such as Ultra violet fluorescence (UVF), GC/MS, HPLC and MS. Among these, UV fluorescence spectroscopy is a rapid and cheap screening technique but it can be applied only to pure compounds. Some errors may arise from the conditions as oil pollution is measured such as the temperature of the sea water and time of the pollution which affect microbial degradation and photo-oxidation. Their degradation products fluorescence intensity is lower than their parent hydrocarbons. Another important point is the reference material used as crude oil type for the calibration material which influences the result of the measurement for UVF application because of the dissimilarity of fluorescence intensity of crude oil references which varies depending on the origin of the crude oil. Another deficiency of the UVF method is that the crude oil which is likely to be used or transported in the area of investigation is not really known. . Because of this reason, chrysene which is a polycyclic hydrocarbon and a natural constituent of crude oil was recommended to be used as a reference by UNESCO 1 . However; this solution has some disadvantages such as variability of chrysene amount in different crude oil samples and variability of chrysene fluorescence intensity depending on the chosen wavelength. Thus the results may be uncertain based on the reference used as discussed by several authors where each uses different reference oil depending on the country of origin and origin of the imported oil in the region or Chrysene 2- 13 . However, there is no report on the solution of this problem. In this work, a new technique was proposed for elimination of this problem in determining oil pollution by UVF analysis. Results and Discussion The results of oil pollution in examined stations calculated according to the calibration curves (shown in Fig 1) are shown in Table 1 and in Table 2 depending on various crude oils and chrysene references that the pollution levels vary depending on references used. In our earlier studies since 1991 in Bosphorus and other parts of Turkish Coasts oil pollution levels were examined and found that they differ depending on the references.