A Review of Oil Spill Remote Sensing.

The technical aspects of oil spill remote sensing are examined and the practical uses and drawbacks of each technology are given with a focus on unfolding technology. The use of visible techniques is ubiquitous, but limited to certain observational conditions and simple applications. Infrared cameras offer some potential as oil spill sensors but have several limitations.

Review of oil spill remote sensing.

Remote-sensing for oil spills is reviewed. The use of visible techniques is ubiquitous, however it gives only the same results as visual monitoring. Oil has no particular spectral features that would allow for identification among the many possible background interferences.

Studies on water-in-oil products from crude oils and petroleum products.

Water-in-oil mixtures such as emulsions, often form and complicate oil spill countermeasures. The formation of water-in-oil mixtures was studied using more than 300 crude oils and petroleum products. Water-in-oil types were characterized by resolution of water at 1 and 7 days, and some after 1 year.

Characterization, weathering, and application of sesquiterpanes to source identification of spilled lighter petroleum products.

Biomarkers have become increasingly important for identifying the source of spilled oil, due to their specificity and high resistance to biodegradation. The biomarkers most commonly used in forensic investigations are the high molecular weight (MW) tri- and pentacyclic terpanes and steranes. For lighter petroleum products such as jet fuels and diesels, the refining processes remove most high MW biomarkers from the original crude oil feedstock.

Formation of water-in-oil emulsions and application to oil spill modelling.

Water-in-oil mixtures were grouped into four states or classes: stable, mesostable, unstable, and entrained water. Of these, only stable and mesostable states can be characterized as emulsions. These states were established according to lifetime, visual appearance, complex modulus, and differences in viscosity.

Modeling evaporation using models that are not boundary-layer regulated.

Experimentation shows that oil is not strictly air boundary-layer regulated. The fact that oil evaporation is not strictly boundary-layer regulated implies that a simplistic evaporation equation suffices to describe the process. The following processes do not require consideration: wind velocity, turbulence level, area, thickness, and scale size.

Accelerated solvent extraction (ASE) of environmental organic compounds in soils using a modified supercritical fluid extractor.

Accelerated solvent extraction (ASE) has been applied to the quantitative extraction of a selected list of semi-volatiles, which include polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), phenols, polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) and total petroleum hydrocarbons. Two conventional supercritical fluid extraction (SFE) systems, the Suprex Prep Master and SFE/50 systems have been modified to function as ASE systems. Using solvent instead of supercritical fluid, extraction in an enclosed system proceeded under high pressure and temperature.

Evaluation of the HP 6890/5973 bench-top gas chromatograph/mass selective detector for use in mobile laboratories.

Introduced in 1996, the Agilent (Hewlett Packard) HP 6890/5973 GC/MSD system is the latest of the bench-top GC/mass spectrometry (MS) family. Started with the HP 5970 MSD, introduced in the mid-1980s, has provided small/medium size laboratories with the power of a true MS that provides selectively and library-searchable capability. This paper presents study results on instrumental sensitivity achieved with the new MSD, with examples illustrating trace-level analysis of semi-volatile compounds such as PCB and Dioxins.

Development of oil hydrocarbon fingerprinting and identification techniques.

Oil, refined product, and pyrogenic hydrocarbons are the most frequently discovered contaminants in the environment. To effectively determine the fate of spilled oil in the environment and to successfully identify source(s) of spilled oil and petroleum products is, therefore, extremely important in many oil-related environmental studies and liability cases. This article briefly reviews the recent development of chemical analysis methodologies which are most frequently used in oil spill characterization and identification studies and environmental forensic investigations.

Studies of the formation process of water-in-oil emulsions.

This paper summarizes studies to determine the formation process of water-in-oil emulsions and the stability of such emulsions formed in the laboratory and in a large test tank. These studies have confirmed that water-in-oil mixtures can be grouped into four states: stable emulsions, unstable water-in-oil mixtures, mesostable emulsions, and entrained water. These states are differentiated by rheological properties as well as by differences in visual appearance.