2010年のディープウォーターホライズンの油流出は、米国史上最大の海上油流出でした。 この災害は、ディープウォーターホライズンの石油掘削装置の爆発によって引き起こされました。この爆発により、一度に11人の命が奪われただけでなく、2億1,000万ガロン近くの原油がメキシコ湾に放出されました。
12年後、この壊滅的な出来事に対応するために数億ドルが費やされ、科学者たちはこの石油がどこに行き着くのか、環境運命として知られる概念を理解するために取り組んでいます。
海上での油流出の最も一般的な運命は、生分解（微生物が油を消費して分解する）、蒸発（液体油がガスに変わる）、および油が海岸線に取り残された後の吸着です。
A team from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) has found that after the Deepwater Horizon disaster, nearly 10 percent of the oil floating in the Gulf was dissolved by sunlight into seawater - a process known as "photolysis". ". The findings are published today in the paper "Sunlight-driven dissolution is the main fate of offshore oil" in the journal Science Advances.
"During the 2010 Deepwater Horizon spill, the amount of oil that was converted by sunlight into compounds dissolved in seawater was different from what we usually know about the fate of oil (such as Biodegradation and stranding on shorelines) are comparable."
"One of the most fascinating aspects of this discovery is that it may affect our understanding of where oil is going elsewhere, and whether the outcome is good or bad," said lead author Danielle Haas Freeman, a student in the joint MIT/WHOI project. Say.
"If a significant portion of this oil is converted by sunlight and dissolved into seawater, it could mean that less oil ends up elsewhere, such as in sensitive coastal ecosystems. On the other hand, we have to consider the impact of these compounds on marine life. impact to determine whether the net result is positive or negative."
To make this important discovery, Freeman and Ward used a custom light-emitting diode (LED) reactor to measure how the velocity of this oil's fate changed under different types of light, such as ultraviolet and visible light.
"The process by which oil has been found to photolysis has actually been around for more than 50 years," Ward said. "But what's new here is that we understand how this process changes with the wavelength of light, which we determined using an LED reactor. This is key information that allows us to estimate the importance of this process during a leak."
LEDを使用した新しい測定方法は、プロセスの制御においてどの条件が最も重要であるかを判断する機会も提供します。 チームは、さまざまな油膜の厚さ、さまざまな時期、世界中のさまざまな場所、さまざまな種類の光を使用して、架空の流出シナリオを作成しました。 彼らが気付いたのは、これらの変化する条件のいくつかが他のものより重要であるということでした。
Oil at the ocean's surface may have a new fate, a concept that has major implications for developing future oil spill research and spill response strategies. It is not known what the fate and potential toxicity of these sunlight-generated compounds are, making it challenging to assess the impact of this oil's fate. The researchers encourage the field to lean toward these gaps in knowledge.
"While our findings suggest that a significant portion of surface oil can dissolve into the ocean upon exposure to sunlight, the logical next step is to assess its persistence and potential harm to aquatic animals," Ward said.
