Saint Peter's University

An oil spill is a major environmental disaster, which is best if fully prevented or discovered early on. Infrared (IR) Technology is a new promising technology for detecting oil spills. IR has advantages over traditional methods because of the distinct thermal contrast between oil and water. While IR has been successfully employed at various instances, including the Deep Water Horizon Crisis, the technology has not yet fully matured. At Saint Peter's University, we intend to study, in detail, the thermal properties of oil–particularly the dependence of oil emissivity on layer thickness. This will allow us to make a volumetric estimation of the oil in a spill. In addition, we plan to employ fluorescence to investigate the spectral response of different oil samples. Numerical simulation will be done in addition to experimental investigation.

Prajwal Niraula, Sabin Pradhan, Edwin Young, Shaikat Haque, Valentina Osorio, & Samrat Shiwakoti

WeiDong Zhu