Modeling airborne levels of some volatile components in oil spills

A Monte-Carlo particle model, along with a mass-transfer evaporation model, was used to investigate the air levels of some hazardous volatile components arising from oil spills. When the mathematical models were used to simulate the M/V Braer oil spill incident, the modeled air levels of C3-C8 hydrocarbons were consistent with the field measurement. Using these verified mathematical models, a series of numerical experiments were performed to investigate the possible air levels of the volatile components under various conditions, including the worst scenarios. The modeled results indicated that the exposures to most of the volatile hydrocarbons besides benzene and n-hexane were negligible, since the space with air levels of these volatile components higher than the exposure criteria only existed directly over the oiled surface. No overexposure air levels of these hydrocarbons were found within the human breath zone. However, for n-hexane, the exposure is possible, depending on the exposure limit adopted. For the sulfur compounds, like hydrogen sulfide, exposure exists, but the duration is very short.