Total Petroleum Hydrocarbon

Total petroleum hydrocarbon (TPH) is a term used to denote a large family of several hundred chemical compounds that originally come from crude oil. Crude oil is used to make petroleum products which can contaminate the environment. Because there are so many different chemicals in crude oil and in other petroleum products, it is not practical to measure each one separately. However, it is useful to measure the total amount of TPH at a site. Some chemicals that may be found in TPH are hexane, jet fuels, mineral oils, benzene, toluene, xylenes, naphthalene, and fluorene, as well as other petroleum products and gasoline components. However, it is likely that samples of TPH will contain only some, or a mixture, of these chemicals.