Strategies for the identification of compounds causing odours in water: A study of creosote spills

Odour events detected in river water entering waterworks plants have been studied. Croesote, a distillate from coal tar used as a raw material by two wood-preserving factories located in the watershed was the product causing some of the incidents envisaged. Several analytical techniques such as closed-loop stripping analysis (CLSA), liquid-liquid extraction (LLE), gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS) and high-performance liquid chromatography-fluorescence detection (HPLC-FL) have been employed to identify creosote spills as the source of the problem. The strategies followed in order to clarify which factory was responsible for the pollution detected are described.