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Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) are one of the classes of chemicals that covered by the Oslo-Paris convention OSPAR.
PAHs are a class of organic compounds that is composed of multiple aromatic rings. The simplest representative is naphthalene, having two aromatic rings, and the three-ring compounds anthracene and phenanthrene. PAHs are uncharged, non-polar and planar. Many are colorless. Many of them are found in coal and in oil deposits, and are also produced by the incomplete combustion of organic matter—for example, in engines and incinerators or when biomass burns in forest fires.
The sources of PAHs mean that they are found extensively in the environment both from natural and man-made sources, so levels of PAHs vary widely from location to location. However local to the River Tees, there has been major historical and current uses of PAHs individually and complex hydrocarbon mixture particularly heavy oil and coal tar a by-product of the extensive coking ovens associated with over 150 years of steel production beside the river.
Applications for licenses which involved disposal of material at sea follow a Marine Management Organisation (MMO) template for the PAHs which are measured, so concentrations of these PAHs are available from the different license applications measured at license specific locations.
MMO PAHs
Acenapthene:
Acenapthylene:
Anthracene:
Benz[a]anthracene:
Benzo[a]pyrene:
Benzo[b]fluoranthene:
Benzo[g,h,i]perylene:
Benzo[e]pyrene:
Benzo[k]fluoranthene:
C1-Napthalenes: https://pubchem.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/image/imgsrv.fcgi?cid=7002&t=s
C1-Phenanthrenes:
C2-Napthalenes:
C3-Napthalenes:
Chrysene:
Dibenz[a,h]anthracene:
Fluoranthene:
Fluorene:
Indeno[123-c,d]pyrene:
Napthalene: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Naphthalene-2D-Skeletal.svg
Perylene:
Phenanthrene:
Pyrene: