One Year Later: DoD Develops Oil Detection Technology

By Julie Weckerlein

This blog post was shared by the Military Sensing Information Analysis Center (SENSIAC).

Since the Deepwater Horizon spill one year ago, increased attention has been given to the Gulf of Mexico and its’ ecosystem. Monitoring the health of the ecosystems helps ensure the sustainability of natural resources, and helps protect human health and the environment.

The Military Sensing Information Analysis Center (SENSIAC) is working with others in the sensing community on developing an advanced-warning system to detect the presence of oil in saltwater. The advanced-warning system’s sensors were developed under an effort sponsored by the Joint Program Executive Office for Chemical and Biological Defense (JPEO-CBD). The JPEO-CBD is the Joint Services single focal point for research, development, acquisition, fielding and life-cycle support of chemical and biological defense equipment and medical countermeasures. Building on the development efforts sponsored by the JPEO-CBD, the team’s advanced-warning system offers the potential for remotely, autonomously and continuously monitoring bodies of water for oil.

This eliminates the travel time that was once needed to physically visit the potential testing site. By eliminating this travel time, emergency response times can be accelerated and cleanup cost and damage to the environment can be reduced.

The device has been tested on oil and water samples collected from waters off the Mississippi and Louisiana coasts last September after the explosion of the Deepwater Horizon rig. Initial results indicate that the sensor is able to detect oil constituents and break down products from the samples.

In operation, when oil or its breakdown components are detected, the digital signal could be wirelessly transmitted to officials on land and the resulting alarm would alert them to the type of toxicity and location of the incident – facilitating an immediate and appropriate response. The system’s design makes it easy to integrate into a low-cost, low-maintenance, scalable package that can run on battery or solar power and be tailored to monitor unique chemical situations. The research team will continue to improve the sensor’s coating chemistry and hopes to deploy the sensor for further testing in the Gulf of Mexico sometime this year. This breakthrough technology gives authorities the potential to actively monitor large areas of coastal waters and quickly alert first responders when a potential threat occurs, thus minimizing the potential damage caused by oil spill.

The Military Sensing Information Analysis Center (SENSIAC) is one of ten Information Analysis Centers (IACs) established by DoD and managed by the Defense Technical Information Center (DTIC). SENSIAC is the DoD Center of Excellence responsible for acquiring, archiving, analyzing, synthesizing, and disseminating scientific and technical information related to Military Sensing Technology (MST).