Prevalence of Oxygenated Hydrocarbon as Oil Degradation Products After Oil Spills

Christoph Aeppli, Bigelow Lab for Ocean Sciences, East Boothbay, ME, United States, Roger Prince, ExxonMobil Biomedical Sciences, Inc., Annandale, NJ, United States, Jagos Radovic, University of Calgary, Department of Geoscience, Calgary, AB, Canada and Christopher M Reddy, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, Marine Chemistry & Geochemistry, Woods Hole, MA, United States
Abstract:
Analysis of oil/sand aggregates (sand patties) washed ashore in the years following the Deepwater Horizon (DWH) disaster reveled that petroleum-derived oxygenated hydrocarbon (OxHC) make up the major mass fraction in most samples. Not much is known about the formation and fate of OxHC. However, it is known that OxHC are petroleum derived and are formed as oil weathers, presumably by petroleum photooxidation or biodegradation. We analyzed trends in OxHC formation in field samples, and compared these results to OxHC formed in laboratory oil degradation experiments. Furthermore, we compared and contrasted OxHC formation in the aftermath of the DWH oil spill with that after the Exxon Valdez oil spill.
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