Determination of phenol levels in some surface water ecosystems of Tirana Area, Albania

The aim of this study was investigating the concentration of phenols in some surface water samples of Tirana area by using UV-VIS technique.Phenols are commonly found in nature because of their natural background and because of human activity including urban wastewater and industrial wastes.Phenol and its derivates are known to have significant ecological toxicity, therefore, determination of its concentrations in water is a valuable parameter for the water quality.UV-VIS method is easy to use, and a low-cost technique but it is also efficient and accurate to determine phenol in trace level.Levels of phenol were measured in four different waterbodies in Tirana area to have an overview about water quality of these important artificial lakes and to find specific reasons and/or phenol sources for them.Water samples were collected in different stations of Tirana artificial lake (10 stations), Paskuqan Lake (8 stations), Farka Lake (8 stations) and Dry Lake reservoir (6 stations).The water sampling was realized monthly from May to October 2024 (except August).Phenol analysis involved method building, method evaluation and quantify of phenol in water samples.Phenols were detected in all the water samples analyzed.The lowest values of phenol were found in the Artificial Lake of Tirana and Dry Lake while the highest values in the Paskuqan Lake and Farka Lake.Almost for all the samples, the concentration of phenols was low in May and high in September.The presence of phenol in these water ecosystems is connected mainly with urban waste.Furthermore, experiments indicated that samples had phenol concentration exceeding 3.4 ppm, a level deemed hazardous to aquatic life by the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).