Environmental Evaluation of Surfactant: Case Study in Sediment of Tigris River, Iraq

*Rana R. Al-Ani, Fikrat M. Hassan and Abdul Hameed M. Jawad Al-Obaidy*

### **Abstract**

Many chemical pollutants take their way into different environment ecosystems. One of these pollutants is detergent, which these compounds used widely worldwide. There is less attention to their impact on the Iraqi environment, especially on an aquatic system; most of these compounds discharged into the river directly by non-urban communities, in addition to household uses that it had spent throughout the domestic drainage systems. Tigris river is the primary source of water in Baghdad City, Iraq, and passes throughout Baghdad city north to south of the city. This chapter deal with the qualitative and quantitative of these compounds in the sediment as it's considered the sink of most pollutant compounds. The four sampling sites were chosen along the river for 13 months, starting from Feb 2017 to Feb 2018 and represent as dry and wet seasons. Physicochemical parameters had measured during this study. For the sediment sample, two methods used Photolab and HPLC. The two types of surfactants were extracted from the sediment as follows anionic and nonionic surfactants which they had found at all the study sites, especially in some locations in the midstream. For temporal variation, the dry seasons noticed a high concentration for nonionic surfactant (56.19 and 467.3 μg/g) by Photolab and HPLC, respectively, and for anionic surfactant (135.74 μg/g) by HPLC. In contrast, by Photolab, only anionic surfactant was recorded a high concentration in wet seasons (72.05 μg/g). The lowest frequency of anionic and nonionic was recorded in wet seasons by Photolab and HPLC, respectively (41.83 μg/g and not detectable) unless for NS by HPLC in the dry season (10.80 μg/g). For spatial variation which according to the cluster diagram, the highest concentration for anionic and nonionic surfactants by Photolab had recorded (57.88 and 34.32 μg/g, respectively) at site1, while for HPLC anionic and nonionic surfactants was recorded highest values (48.37 and 235.79, respectively) at site 4. From this study concluded that sites 1 and 4 are the most pollutant than other sites because the activity of discharge of pollution.

**Keywords:** cluster analysis, lotic system, physicochemical facters, surfactants, water pollution

### **1. Introduction**

Many of the detergents that had used worldwide comprised of anionic surfactant about 50–60% and nonionic surfactant 40% [1]. Surface active agents abbreviated to surfactants, which is one of the significant components of detergents that consisted of one or more hydrocarbon chains (organic compounds) and hydrophobic or hydrophilic characteristics [2]. In addition to the widespread uses of surfactants in washing purposes, besides used in the composition of emulsifiers, pesticide formulations, fibers, wetting agents, cosmetics, and treatment of textiles [3].

According to the charge of the hydrophilic part, the surfactants classify into anionic, cationic, nonionic, and amphoteric, and for this reason, it's applied in various domestic and industrial purposes. Thence, they could be passed into all ecosystem compartments (soil, water, and sediment) in multiple ways, after that subjected to different physicochemical processes in an environment like sorption, degradation, and transformation freely [4–6]. These compounds have a high propensity to adsorb in sediments, which represents an extreme concentration [7, 8]. Often, the solid wastes had thrown into the river from sewage treatment plants. These compounds in the environment are different in their fate, behavior, actions, and interaction with other components [9]. The environmental danger of surfactants is bioaccumulation, which has a detrimental effect on aquatic organisms, such as toxicity and endocrine homeostasis. It also improves the solubility of organic compounds in water, which can contribute to movement and aggregation in various divisions of the environmental [8].

The contamination of sediments is a major environmental problem worldwide. Weak ecological management in the past has contributed to natural bodies and erratic incidents, resulting in deposits being swept away by other pollutants [10, 11]. At low concentrations of surfactants in the environment are considered as safe as organic pollutants, while the toxicities at a high level had taken of great interest [12].

One of the main justifications for this study is that surfactants are very toxic and hazardous substances for aquatic organisms, and their everyday uses in domestic and industrial fields encourage their quantitative and qualitative examination in the Tigris River sediment. There is also a vast knowledge discrepancy that needs to explore concerning a surfactant product on the Tigris River. However, the quantitative and qualitative distribution of these surfactant compounds in river sediment had investigated in this study. Besides, this study also offers quantitative details on the effect of such surfactant classes on some of the river water's physicochemical properties and correlates this evidence with known standards.

### **2. Detergent components**

**Figure 1** illustrates the detergent ingredients, which consist of three groups [13]. A detergent is a surfactant that has cleaning characteristics in a dilute solution. Almost the alkylbenzene-sulfonates are usually substances of these compounds, and according to Authors [1, 13] which they mentioned that surfactant has a less ability to link with hard water compenent ions such as calcium in contrast with soap in hard water because its polar carboxyl. The word detergent in most domestic settings specifically refers traditionally the detergent known as agent of cleaning in restaurants and laundries, also as different home uses.

Detergents are widely present as powders or concentrated solutions. Detergents like soaps work because they are amphiphilic, partly hydrophilic (polar), and somewhat hydrophobic (nonpolar). These properties facilities the mixture of hydrophobic compounds (such as oil and grease) with water. One of the essential

*Environmental Evaluation of Surfactant: Case Study in Sediment of Tigris River, Iraq DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.94324*
