75% of Oil Can Evaporate
The Dangerous Volatile Organic Compounds are First
by Stephanie Relfe B.Sc. (Sydney)
July 9 2010
A most important article a study done by the Emergencies Science Division of Canada was posted on http://www.mms.gov/tarprojects/120/120BG.PDF
However, that article is not longer showing as of July 9 2010, and I fear that it has been pulled. It was there about 1-2 weeks ago.
If anyone has a copy of the original article, please email me.
I have managed to find parts of the article, which are as follows:
Evaporation is the most important change most oil spills undergo. In a few days light crudes can evaporate as much as 75% of the starting mass and medium crudes up to 40%. Heavy or residual oils may only evaporate to the extent of 10% in the first few days following a spill.Many spill models incorporate evaporation as a component of their prediction because of the large mass balance change...
There are several fundamental differences between the evaporations of a pure liquid such as water and for a multi-componenet system such as crude oil. First the evaporation rate for a single liquid such as water is constant with respect to time. Evaporative loss-by total weight or volume-is logarithmic with time for multi-component mixtures. This is due to depletion of more volatile components, which occurs exponentially with time. The second major difference between water evaporation is the effect of atmospheric conditions. Water evaporation is strongly dependant on windspeed and relative humidity. Air can only hold a certain water mass. Air does not contain a high level of benzene and other componets and the saturation of these in air is often well above concentrations achieved by an evaporating slick. The understanding of how wind affects oil slick evaporation has not yet been achieved."
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