Total petroleum hydrocarbons (TPH) is an important parameter for evaluating risk and establishing cleanup requirements at petroleum release sites. However, different analytical methods may provide incomparable results. To select more appropriate method and design cost-effective remediation strategy, a comparison study of four analytical methods (gravimetric method, infrared spectrometry (IR), gas chromatography-flame ionization detection (GC-FID), and ultraviolet spectrophotometer (UV)) is conducted for soil samples spiked by crude oil and fuel oils under both non-weathered and short-term weathered conditions. The gravimetric method produces higher TPH recovery for less volatile samples such as samples contaminated by motor oil and crude oil. The UV method reports very low TPH recovery and thus fails to provide the meaningful results in all tested samples. The IR method is a quick and relatively inexpensive screening tool and generally gives high TPH recovery, but the method precision and reproducibility are relatively low. The GC-FID method is relatively expensive and time consuming, but it has several advantages: (1) is more selective to hydrocarbons; (2) the method precision and reproducibility is relatively high; (3) is able to provide chemical fingerprint information. Therefore, appropriate method and should be chosen carefully depending on oil contamination type and investigation purpose. The results of short-term simulated weathering experiment showed 99.6% and 65.3% of TPH measured by the GC-FID method were removed for the kerosene and diesel contaminated soils after 14 days of weathering at 50ºC, respectively. We have provided evidence that weathering is an important attenuation pathway at kerosene and diesel spill sites. We can design the most cost-effective remediation strategy according to different oil types spilled.

总石油烃 (TPH) 是评估风险和制定石油释放场所清理要求的重要参数。然而，不同的分析方法可能会提供无法比拟的结果。为了选择更合适的方法和设计具有成本效益的修复策略，对四种分析方法（重量法、红外光谱（IR）、气相色谱-火焰电离检测（GC-FID）和紫外分光光度计（UV））进行了比较研究。对在非风化和短期风化条件下添加原油和燃料油的土壤样品进行了测试。重量法对挥发性较低的样品（例如被机油和原油污染的样品）产生更高的 TPH 回收率。UV 方法报告的 TPH 回收率非常低，因此无法在所有测试样品中提供有意义的结果。IR 方法是一种快速且相对便宜的筛选工具，通常可提供较高的 TPH 回收率，但方法的精密度和重现性相对较低。GC-FID 方法相对昂贵且耗时，但它有几个优点：（1）对碳氢化合物的选择性更强；(2)方法精密度和重现性较高；(3)能够提供化学指纹信息。因此，应根据油污类型和调查目的谨慎选择合适的方法。短期模拟风化试验结果为99.6%和65%。煤油和柴油污染土壤在 50ºC 下风化 14 天后，通过 GC-FID 方法测得的 TPH 分别为 3%。我们提供的证据表明，风化是煤油和柴油泄漏现场的重要衰减途径。我们可以根据不同的溢油类型设计最具成本效益的修复策略。