Table 3.

Molecular diagnostic ratios and possible sources of PAHs in the water and sediment samples from Buffalo River Estuary

PAHs	Petrogenic	Pyrolytic	Surface water	Sediment
Anth/178	< 0.1	≥ 0.1	0.01 ± 0.001	1.22 ± 0.33
Anth/Anth + Phen	< 0.1	> 0.1	0.5 ± 0.07	0.44 ± 0.06
BaA/228	< 0.2	0.2–0.35	0.01 ± 0.002	0.98 ± 0.32
BaA/BaA + Chry	< 0.2	0.2–0.35	0.52 ± 0.05	0.41 ± 0.06
Chry/BaA	< 0.4	> 0.9	2.19 ± 0.62	3.09 ± 0.69
Flt/Pyr	< 1.0	> 1.0	0.05 ± 0.03	1.67 ± 0.56
Flt/Flt + Pyr	< 0.4	> 0.4	0.04 ± 0.02	0.4 ± 0.09
InPy/InPy + BghiP	< 0.2	> 0.2	–	0.47 ± 0.06
LMW/HMW	> 1.0	< 1.0	0.54 ± 0.91	0.42 ± 0.34
Phen/Anth	> 15	< 10	0.61 ± 0.12	2.38 ± 0.91

Phen phenanthrene, Anth anthracene, Chry chrysene, BaA benzo[a]anthracene, Flt fluoranthene, Pyr pyrene, InPy indeno(123,cd)pyrene, BghiP benzo[g,h,i]perylene, LMW low molecular weight, HMW high molecular weight (Moyo et al. 2013; Adeniji et al. 2018a, b)