Abstract
Immediately following an oil spill, more hydrophilic and toxic oil compounds such as benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene, and xylene (BTEX) partition from the oil into the water phase. The partitioning behavior of individual organic compounds between petroleum and water phases is influenced by their molecular properties and by the pressure, the temperature, and the composition of bulk oil and surrounding water. The traditional shake flask technique for determining oil-water partition ratios (equilibrium [X]oil/[X]water) cannot accurately assess the extremes of high pressure and low water temperatures found in deep submarine oil spill conditions. To address that challenge, an oil-water partitioning device was constructed to experimentally simulate the partition behavior of BTEX compounds under submarine oil spill conditions, using simulated live oil (methane charged) with saline waters, over a range of pressure (2–15 MPa) and temperature (4–20 °C). Within the investigated ranges, the partition ratios of BTEX compounds increase proportionally with an increase in methane charging pressure (oil saturation pressure) and the degree of alkylation within the BTEX compound group. The increase in experimental temperature, however, resulted in a decrease in the partition ratios of BTEX compounds. The change of the partition ratio values, due to changes in system pressure and increasing methane concentration, is much more significant than the changes that are due to varying temperature over the range studied.
The customized system was also operated with chemical dispersant, which is often applied as a spill response option to enhance the natural dispersion of oil following spillage, to understand its effect on the partitioning of oil at an oil/dispersant ratio of 1000:1. The addition of dispersants was found to increase the extent of BTEX compound partitioning from the oil into water. The increase observed was higher at near surface conditions, while being within the experimental error limits at the higher pressure conditions. These data may be used in near-field and far-field distribution modeling of the environmental fate of highly toxic BTEX compounds derived from submarine oil spills and their impact on the ecosystem. The parameters will also aid in the prediction of oil migration and dispersion away from the spill thus helping to improve response strategies.
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Acknowledgments
This research was made possible in part by a grant from The Gulf of Mexico Research Initiative/C-IMAGE II and in part by the Canada Foundation for Innovation (CFI), the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) and Canada Research Chairs (CRC), PRG, and the University of Calgary.
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Jaggi, A., Snowdon, R.W., Radović, J.R., Stopford, A., Oldenburg, T.B.P., Larter, S.R. (2020). Partitioning of Organics Between Oil and Water Phases with and Without the Application of Dispersants. In: Murawski, S., et al. Deep Oil Spills. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-11605-7_8
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