Oil On Water Leak Monitoring

Oil leaks to water bodies is a problem that has attracted the attention of many researchers, environmentalists, and industries. Oil leaks to water bodies can cause significant economic losses and, more significantly, cause environmental pollution that put humans, animals and plants in danger. Furthermore, the nature of oil spills and run-off is that it can contaminate even distant bodies of water very quickly, depending on the winds and the tides.
 
In order to limit environmental damage, national and international entities have issued increasingly stringent environmental regulations.
 
Early oil leak detection offers a technological solution to these issues, since the quicker the leak is detected the more rapidly it can be dealt with. This is true for both large scale leaks from oil tankers and pipelines and ongoing small scale, but cumulative runoff.
 

Leakwise sensors offer the best possible solution for the early detection of both types of oil spills. They are highly sensitive, capable of detecting as little as 0.3mm of hydrocarbon in the water. Nor is there any lag time – as soon as the oil makes contact with the sensor, the data is processed and sent to controller, in accordance with the adjustable sensitivity setting he decided upon. Furthermore, certain leakwise setting can detect soil, as well as water, contamination, increasing the versatility of their deployment. The Leakwise sensor interfaces with the control center via relay contact, enabling the user to monitor for oil spills and control the sensor settings from afar, granting access to even the most logistically difficult sites.

In addition, the leakwise sensors are durable and capable of operating in hazardous conditions, and their operation is not affected by dirt or oil coating, variations in water salinity, temperature, sea level/tides or turbulence.

Oil leak alert

There are several parameters that determine whether an oil leak response team will be activated, what actions it will take, and whether these actions will be effective.
• First of all, the question is – how good the situational awareness of the oil leak response team? How soon is it alerted of what happened, where it happened, and most importantly – how much hydrocarbon fluid has already leaked in to water?
• Next, the oil leak alert response team must assess the risks caused by the oil spill. Will it degrade or undergo damaging chemical reactions with other compounds that will make it even harder to clean up? Where will the winds and currents move the hydrocarbon layer? What environmental features and people are at risk?
• Then the oil leak alert response team must formulate response options – can the oil spill be cleaned up? How?
• In order to decide on the correct response the oil alert response team must assess the probable outcomes of each option. How much of the oil spill will each option remove? Will there be any side-effects to any of the response options? How long will it take for the remaining oil to degrade, where will it go to and what will it damage before it does?
• Finally, even after a response is decided upon, the oil leak alert response team needs to be able to monitor the effectiveness of whatever they are doing (or not doing) in reducing the damage caused by the oil spill.
Does answering these questions seem simple? It isn’t. Oil spills are inconvenient creatures – they tend to occur in remote and difficult to reach locations and under difficult climatic conditions. Worse, the oil itself changes its character over time.
Being aware that something has happened, figuring out was exactly has happened, and figuring out what is happening, requires data, and that data, particularly the early baseline data in the pre-spill environment and the immediate post-spill environment can only be gathered through continuous remote monitoring of the environment for oil leaks.

Leakwise Brochure

Oil-on-Water Detection and Monitoring Systems Leakwise is a global leader in oil-on-water detection systems, with over 6,000 systems installed in 50 countries. The Leakwise product

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