H088-0001
Residence Time Numerical Investigation of Contaminants in Marine Sediments
Thursday, 10 December 2020
Poster
Temitope Ajayi, Louisiana State University, Craft and Hawkins Department of Petroleum Engineering, Baton Rouge, LA, United States and Ipsita Gupta, Louisiana State University, Craft & Hawkins Department of Petroleum Engineering, Baton Rouge, LA, United States
Abstract:
Environmental impacts of oil spillages in the subsurface create unfavorable conditions for marine life and could possibly affect human activities. After the Deepwater horizon, the whereabouts of about 25% of the spilled were unaccounted for. A portion of this oil is believed to have settled in marine sediments. Therefore, it is necessary to predict the residence times of these organic compounds present in the oil. To achieve this, we investigate the biodegradation of the volatile organic compounds present in the oil. A substrate degradation rate equation is used to model the biodegradation of the organic compounds. Monod kinetics is used to account for the effect of inhibitive and non-inhibitive competing biomass populations. An understanding of the important Monod parameters responsible for biodegradation is garnered after which the equation is coupled with transport and flow processes to provide a comprehensive analysis.
Initial results have shown that biodegradation may be a slow process and that the residence times of the organic compounds may be significant. The process seems to be influenced by the presence of multiple microbial populations in the marine sediments. Asides important biodegradation parameters which influence the process, transport processes such as the diffusion and solubility of the organic compounds also seem to be important in the overall degradation process.
This study provides a numerical analysis of the possible residence times of spilled volatile organic compounds in marine sediments which is important in post oil spill related activities.
Research reported in this publication was supported by an Early-Career Research Fellowship from the Gulf Research Program of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the Gulf Research Program of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine.
