Hi Anvar, Petroleum ...

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Hi Anvar,

Petroleum ​Products and ​Dissolved ​Hydrocarbons - ​can these 2 ​terms be taken ​same.  ​This is to ​check ​compliance with ​WHO
I would say no. Petroleum products covers a very wide range of compounds, both water soluble and insoluble. Dissolved Hydrocarbons would be a subset of Petroleum Products (only those compounds that are water soluble). The 'Guidelines for drinking-water quality: fourth edition incorporating the first
addendum' provides the following comment on Petroleum Products:

So there is no guideline value for Petroleum Products in this reference. I was unable to any reference to Dissolved Hydrocarbons in this document. Could you let me know which reference you obtained the value for Dissolved Hydrocarbons from?


If both are ​different, then ​how do we deal ​with the ​distillate & ​hydrocarbons as ​stated in the ​rider. ​Based on the above I think that you could focus on the 'Dissolved Hydrocarbons'. Dissolved Hydrocarbons are likely to be smaller hydrocarbons, including TPH, BTEXN and PAH compounds. The solubility/miscibility of hydrocarbons in water reduces sharply as the number of carbons in the molecule increases.

There is a good paper which shows this:

https://www.nrcresearchpress.com/doi/pdfplus/10.1139/v73-599

I think that if you had  process in place to remove bulk organics (Petroleum Products) and possibly a separate removal process specifically to remove Dissolved Hydrocarbons you would meet the WHO requirement.

In addition you should be monitoring your product water for TRH(C1-C10), BTEXN and PAH suites. These are standard analytical suites that most laboratories should provide.

Of course this should be subject to a proper risk assessment (I don't know what the composition of your feed water is or what you plan to do with it).


Are dissolved ​hydrocarbons, ​as a parameter ​more stringent ​than the WHO ​defined ​Petroleum ​Products ​

It would seem so. There appears to be no guideline value for Petroleum Products in the ' Guidelines for drinking-water quality: fourth edition incorporating the first addendum'. 

While there also appears to be no specific guideline value (that I could find) for Dissolved Hydrocarbons there are guideline values for the various compounds that would make up Dissolved Hydrocarbons.