A significant fraction of the oil released during the 2010 DWH accident accumulated at the sea surface. According to recent studies, the volatile organic compounds (VOCs), as well as some intermediate volatiles (IVOCs) evaporated into the atmosphere and formed aerosols. However, the fate of other organics, such as heavier IVOCs (C17-C18) and semi-volatiles (SVOCs, C19-C31) has not been addressed so far. We hypothesize that these compounds didn't evaporate but remained in the sea surface, and phenomena such as bubble-bursting and white caps carried these compounds, as well as part of the dispersants released to combat the spill, into the atmosphere. We report molecular dynamics (MD) simulations of chain alkanes, e.g., pentadecane (C15) and icosane (C20), at atmospheric air/salt water interfaces. The effects of varying concentrations of these alkanes, as well as varying amounts of a standard surfactant, sodium dodecyl sulfate (SDS), on the interfacial properties of these systems is investigated

Molecular dynamics simulations of oil hydrocarbons and surfactants at atmospheric air/salt water interfaces

245th National Meeting (2013)

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