API PUBL 4714-2002

$25.35

A Guide to Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons for the Non-Specialist

Published By	Publication Date	Number of Pages
API	2002	40

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Description

This report provides an introduction to polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) for persons working in the petroleum industry. It describes what PAHs are and how they are formed; PAH environmental transport, fate, and health effects; regulatory requirements related to PAHs; and analytical methods for measuring PAH concentrations in the environment. This information is of particular relevance to the petroleum industry due to the natural presence of PAHs in crude oil, the formation of PAHs during some refining processes, and the production of PAHs throughout the combustion of petroleum products. The intended audience for this report includes environmental professionals who must address PAH regulatory issues, and field personnel who are responsible for the sampling and analyses of PAHs.

Concern about PAHs in the environment is due to their acute toxicity or carcinogenic properties, as well as their relative persistence. This concern has led to the regulation of PAHs under a number of U.S. laws, including the:

• Clean Air Act(CAA),

• Clean Water Act (CWA),

• Emergency Planning and Community Right-to-Know Act (EPCRA),

• Occupational Safety and Health Act (OSHA),

• Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA), and

• Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA).

Several environmental regulations relate directly to petroleum products or petroleum processing. Polycyclic organic matter (POM) is one of the toxic air pollutants whose emissions reformulated gasoline are meant to reduce. POM (defined as the sum of the seven carcinogenic PAHs) is also on the list of mobile source hazardous air pollutants that the EPA is proposing for future regulation, as well as on the list of hazardous air pollutants for the EPA’s Urban Air Toxics Strategy.

Toxic release inventory reporting (TRI) under EPCRA requires facilities, such as oil refineries that manufacture, process, or otherwise use as little as 10 lbs of the PAH benzo[ghi]perylene or 100 lbs of polycyclic aromatic compounds (a group of 21 PAHs, substituted PAHs, and heterocyclic compounds), to report their releases to the environment. Other laws and regulations on PAHs, which are described in Section 5 of this report, apply to their concentrations in the natural and workplace environment.

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