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- Gas principle: scientists have created software for monitoring toxic fuel oil fumes
Gas principle: scientists have created software for monitoring toxic fuel oil fumes
Russian scientists have developed a computer program for forecasting the spread of air pollution caused by the release of fuel oil on the Black Sea coast. The system predicts the movement of air masses three days ahead. The invention is fully ready for practical application. According to the head of the working group for the selection of new technologies to eliminate the consequences of the disaster, one or two days will be enough to evaluate the development, and then it can be used for monitoring. Now it is very difficult to determine the scale of atmospheric pollution as a result of interaction with vapors of oil products, there is no sufficient data for this, so the development will be extremely relevant, explained the environmentalists.
Air pollution forecasting
Specialists of the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology have created a digital system for forecasting the spread of atmospheric air pollution, which is primarily designed to monitor harmful fuel oil vaporization in the disaster zone near the coast of the Black and Azov Seas. This is a computer program that simulates the movement of air masses and is capable of predicting the situation three days ahead. It is developed for the needs of the services that deal with the consequences of the accident.
- As with any fraction of petroleum products, fuel oil releases hydrocarbons, sulfur compounds and nitrogen compounds. This can be dangerous for people and animals. MIPT has prepared a proposal to control air pollution and water pollution. We drew them up with the support of the Agency for Strategic Initiatives and submitted them to the Ministry of Education and Science. Now we are waiting for approval, when we will be able to start this work on site, - said the head of the laboratory of applied infrared spectroscopy MIPT Alexander Rodin.
For volunteers who work with the localization of the fuel oil spill, inhalation of vapors is dangerous because it can aggravate their existing respiratory system diseases, said Stanislav Ottavnov, head of the laboratory of analysis of health indicators of the population of MIPT.
Volunteers during the cleanup of spilled fuel oil on the beach
- Vapors in large volumes can also cause problems in themselves, this is known even from safety courses. That' s why it's better to protect your respiratory organs while working," he said.
According to Alexander Rodin, if now because of low temperatures air pollution is not so noticeable, then by summer, when the heat will increase vaporization, the situation may worsen. Pollution does not take the form of condensation, fog or liquid droplets, it is a gaseous impurity in the air. The program takes into account several dozen types of impurities. This is quite a large list of substances that can be released as a result of man-made or natural disasters.
Scientists used in the system their past developments and foreign codes with open access. The program includes a meteorological part that takes into account the movement of air masses, heat transfer, moisture transfer, precipitation, and a transport model that calculates how pollution will move. The third component is chemical, it analyzes all possible interactions of elements that pollute the air.
For the calculations, the program needs data from sensors installed near the emission sites. The more information is entered into the system, the more accurate the forecast. For more accurate results, it is necessary to take into account vaporization from large fuel oil slicks that drift in the sea. These can be sampled directly from the sea surface. Since the air masses are constantly changing their location, experts will also need mobile sensors to follow the movement of emissions. For monitoring, ordinary commercially available sensors will do.
A good server is enough for the system to work, the authors of the project noted. It runs through an ordinary browser and can be used by staff without special knowledge of meteorology or information technology.
Evaluating new technologies for remediation
To interact with scientific organizations, the Krasnodar Region Ministry of Education, Science and Youth Policy formed a working group of the operational headquarters. It was headed by Viktor Anisimov, PhD in technical sciences, director of the Kuban Science Foundation. According to him, the permission to use the system can be given literally in a day or two after its registration on the Internet resource of the Ministry of Education and Science of Russia, coordination may take some time.
- The procedure for registering new developments looks very simple. On the website of the Ministry of Education and Science of Russia "Science and Innovations" is open registration of all applications. The development is examined and the commission recommends it to the operative staff for replication. The sooner the author registers, the sooner the examination will take place. This happens in real time. Literally a day or two - and the expertise is passed," said Viktor Anisimov.
A member of the research lab
According to him, the working group has already approved more than a hundred proposals. "Izvestia" sent a request to the Ministry of Education and Science to comment on what criteria will be used to select the developments.
Petroleum products entering the environment as a result of an accident are carried by water. Many processes are continuously taking place with them, including vaporization into the atmosphere. These are very complex processes that require a lot of data for modeling, a leading researcher at the Shirshov Institute of Oceanology told Izvestia. Alexander Asadchiev of the Shirshov Institute of Oceanology of the Russian Academy of Sciences.
Cleaning up spilled fuel oil
- Computing power is usually not enough to reproduce in detail all the physics of the process. Therefore, the model always simplifies something. A lot of things that happen with fuel oil in the sea have not been studied. Nevertheless, it all needs to be modeled for decision making, and a forecast period of three days seems reasonable for this purpose. Since the shorter the timeframe, the more accurate the event can be predicted," he said.
According to Igor Shkradyuk, coordinator of the Industrial Greening Program at the Wildlife Conservation Center, it is very difficult to assess the impact of fuel oil emissions on the atmosphere right now because the necessary data are not available.
- It's been five weeks now. And we still do not know any results of measuring the properties of fuel oil. Only after the New Year it became clear that it is M-100 fuel oil. But it can have a very wide range of properties, because different oil is used for its production and it is made by different refineries. And this means a lot. We don't know the dependence of fuel oil density on temperature either, so we don't understand at what temperature it will float off the bottom. We also do not know its chemical composition, viscosity, adhesion, including the distillation curve. On this indicator depends on how much fuel oil will remain as a film on the water, and how much will fly into the air, - said Igor Shkradyuk.
For accurate forecasting, all these indicators must be taken into account in the model. It is also important to include those substances that are formed during evaporation, the expert summarized.
