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Evaluating peats for their capacities to extract methyl tertiary butyl ether from contaminated water using solid-phase microextraction with gas chromatography

Methyl tertiary butyl ether (MTBE), the most common fuel additive used to oxygenate gasoline, is being detected more frequently in drinking water supplies. This research investigates the capacities of 10 different types of highly characterized peats to extract MTBE from contaminated water. Peat samples were slurried for 24 hours under controlled conditions in aqueous solutions of MTBE. Liquid portions of the samples were analyzed for MTBE concentrations using a Solid-phase Microextraction GC/MS (SPME-GC/MS) method and were compared to samples of the MTBE solution (without peat addition) to determine the peats' MTBE sorption capacities. The SPME-GC/MS results indicate that all peats tested worked well at extracting MTBE from an aqueous solution. Although this was so, some peats tended to work better than others. The Loxahatchee Nymphaea and the Maine Sphagnum peats worked best, producing 92 and 88% MTBE reductions, respectively, while the Okefenokee Taxodium and the New York peats achieved the poorest results, producing only 50 and 47% MTBE reductions, respectively. In addition, the peats derived from herbaceous vegetation worked better than those derived from woody plants (except for the woody North Carolina peat). Overall, the peats that were the most effective at extracting MTBE from water tended to have higher hydraulic conductivities, microporosities, macroporosities, total porosities, and water holding capacities, but lower bulk densities, total ash contents, Ti contents, P contents, Si contents, K contents, Al contents, fulvic acid contents, total guaiacyl lignin contents, and total other ketones contents. Peats with higher MTBE extraction capacities also had humic acids contents that ranged between 4.6–7.1%. These results suggest that peats could be used as filtration, or sorption, media to remediate surface water or groundwater that is contaminated with MTBE. SPME-GC/MS analysis was found to be a reasonably inexpensive and efficient way to evaluate MTBE sorption capacities of peat samples.