SOCAAR is pleased to announce the seminar for March 2019:

Wednesday, March 20, 2019

3:00 – 4:00 PM
200 College Street, WB 407

understanding complex mixtures of hydrocarbons released into the environment
Gabriel Isaacman-VanWertz

Assistant Professor
Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering
Virginia Tech

Abstract: Complex mixtures of hydrocarbons are a major contaminant across a wide range of environments, from vehicle emissions of atmospheric particulate matter to spilled petroleum fuels. This seminar will discuss both issues, with a focus on the sub-surface discharge of oil used for heating residences. Around 6 million homes in the U.S. rely on home heating oil for heat, and the majority of oil storage tanks end up leaking or spilling. More than half a million documented instances of discharges of fuel oil from underground storage tanks throughout the U.S have potentially exposed home owners to hazardous fuel vapors. These vapors are comprised of thousands of different hydrocarbons, making it difficult to understand their environmental fate and the risks they pose. We sampled sub-surface air at ~50 Virginia residences at which a reported fuel oil discharge had been previously remediated, with the goals of understanding the biogeochemical transformations of spilled oil and assessing potential risk to residents. By adapting common analytical tools, we were able characterize these complex hydrocarbon mixtures with unprecedented detail, categorizing their constituent hydrocarbons based on their molecular structures. Our results provide new insights into traditional approaches for evaluating the degradation of spills and the hazards they pose, new assessments of the variety of fuels used by residents, and new methods for characterizing complex hydrocarbon mixtures in environmental samples without advanced instrumentation.

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SOCAAR Seminar - Gabriel Isaacman-VanWertz
Wed, Mar 20, 2019 3:00 PM - 4:00 PM EDT

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