Sunlight-driven dissolution is a major fate of oil at sea
<jats:p> Oxygenation reactions initiated by sunlight can transform insoluble components of crude oil at sea into water-soluble products, a process called photo-dissolution. First reported a half century ago, photo-dissolution has never been included in spill models because key par...
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| Format: | Article |
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American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS)
2022
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| Online Access: | https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/141039.2 |
| _version_ | 1811070573247201280 |
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| author | Freeman, Danielle Haas Ward, Collin P. |
| author2 | Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution |
| author_facet | Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution Freeman, Danielle Haas Ward, Collin P. |
| author_sort | Freeman, Danielle Haas |
| collection | MIT |
| description | <jats:p>
Oxygenation reactions initiated by sunlight can transform insoluble components of crude oil at sea into water-soluble products, a process called photo-dissolution. First reported a half century ago, photo-dissolution has never been included in spill models because key parameters required for rate modeling were unknown, including the wavelength and photon dose dependence. Here, we experimentally quantified photo-dissolution as a function of wavelength and photon dose, making possible a sensitivity analysis of environmental variables in hypothetical spill scenarios and a mass balance assessment for the 2010
<jats:italic>Deepwater Horizon</jats:italic>
(DwH) spill. The sensitivity analysis revealed that rates were most sensitive to oil slick thickness, season/latitude, and wavelength and less sensitive to photon dose. We estimate that 3 to 17% (best estimate 8%) of DwH surface oil was subject to photo-dissolution, comparable in magnitude to other widely recognized fate processes. Our findings invite a critical reevaluation of surface oil budgets for both DwH and future spills at sea.
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| first_indexed | 2024-09-23T08:38:11Z |
| format | Article |
| id | mit-1721.1/141039.2 |
| institution | Massachusetts Institute of Technology |
| last_indexed | 2024-09-23T08:38:11Z |
| publishDate | 2022 |
| publisher | American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) |
| record_format | dspace |
| spelling | mit-1721.1/141039.22024-06-13T15:34:09Z Sunlight-driven dissolution is a major fate of oil at sea Freeman, Danielle Haas Ward, Collin P. Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering <jats:p> Oxygenation reactions initiated by sunlight can transform insoluble components of crude oil at sea into water-soluble products, a process called photo-dissolution. First reported a half century ago, photo-dissolution has never been included in spill models because key parameters required for rate modeling were unknown, including the wavelength and photon dose dependence. Here, we experimentally quantified photo-dissolution as a function of wavelength and photon dose, making possible a sensitivity analysis of environmental variables in hypothetical spill scenarios and a mass balance assessment for the 2010 <jats:italic>Deepwater Horizon</jats:italic> (DwH) spill. The sensitivity analysis revealed that rates were most sensitive to oil slick thickness, season/latitude, and wavelength and less sensitive to photon dose. We estimate that 3 to 17% (best estimate 8%) of DwH surface oil was subject to photo-dissolution, comparable in magnitude to other widely recognized fate processes. Our findings invite a critical reevaluation of surface oil budgets for both DwH and future spills at sea. </jats:p> 2022-03-07T16:35:15Z 2022-03-07T16:12:29Z 2022-03-07T16:35:15Z 2022-02 2021-08 Article http://purl.org/eprint/type/JournalArticle 2375-2548 https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/141039.2 Freeman, Danielle Haas and Ward, Collin P. 2022. "Sunlight-driven dissolution is a major fate of oil at sea." Science Advances, 8 (7). http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.abl7605 Science Advances Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ application/octet-stream American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) Science Advances |
| spellingShingle | Freeman, Danielle Haas Ward, Collin P. Sunlight-driven dissolution is a major fate of oil at sea |
| title | Sunlight-driven dissolution is a major fate of oil at sea |
| title_full | Sunlight-driven dissolution is a major fate of oil at sea |
| title_fullStr | Sunlight-driven dissolution is a major fate of oil at sea |
| title_full_unstemmed | Sunlight-driven dissolution is a major fate of oil at sea |
| title_short | Sunlight-driven dissolution is a major fate of oil at sea |
| title_sort | sunlight driven dissolution is a major fate of oil at sea |
| url | https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/141039.2 |
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