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Sunlight-driven dissolution is a major fate of oil at sea
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 mo...
Autores principales: | , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
American Association for the Advancement of Science
2022
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8849300/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35171676 http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.abl7605 |
Sumario: | 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 Deepwater Horizon (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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