Researcher, Nuwan Wijewardane and his team at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln discovered a new method to rapidly assess how much oil has been spilled during an oil spill and how far it may have spread. Implications of Wijewardane’s research will allow faster recovery efforts and the reduction of environmental consequences that result from oil spills.
"Accidental releases of oil at production and distribution sites can pose serious environmental issues if not treated," explains Wijewardane. "This demands remedial actions to assist in the rapid restoration of the ecosystem to its pre-contamination state. It is critical to be able to estimate concentration levels in impacted soil quickly and easily."
Soil analysis has traditionally been completed in the laboratory requiring multiple steps of analysis. It requires collecting samples from the spill site and then taking them off-site for analysis, increasing the time and expenses of the project.
"It costs about $50 per sample," says Wijewardane. "And that does not include the cost of the labor needed to collect samples from the field. In addition, it can take days or maybe weeks to get results."
The goal of the researchers was to develop a faster and cheaper technology called Vis-NIR spectroscopy to measure the oil content in soil without having to take the time to gather so many samples from the spill site.
Researchers were able to build accurate model samples with only a few samples from the site needed. Adding just a few field samples, rather than relying solely on them, is a process called "spiking." This reduction of time and labor necessary at the oil spill site makes their method rapid and cheap.
The cost of the VisNIR-based method is just a few dollars per sample. The results are almost instant. Another added benefit is that the tool can be taken right into the field to speed up the overall project.
"As long as we extract and use crude oil, there is a risk of environmental contamination that can threaten the ecosystem's balance," Wijewardane says. "When it happens, we need immediate actions to detect it, evaluate the situation, and recommend remedial actions. This is where a rapid, cheap, and accurate technique in the field can accelerate the process."
Their research is published in the Journal of Environmental Quality.