This report analyzes contaminant mobilization in water as a result of structure fire events through four objectives: identify common materials involved in these fire events, develop a standardized burn method for these materials, develop a method to analyze water samples, and identify the contaminants and their concentrations. To accomplish these objectives fuel packages composed of white pine wood, high-density polyethylene (HDPE), chemical resistant polyvinyl chloride (PVC), and neoprene rubber were constructed. Fuel packages were burned and suppressed with water. The water used for fire suppression was collected and analyzed using Gas Chromatography-Mass Spectrometry (GC-MS) to determine contaminant concentrations in each water sample. This project found that all eight water samples contained benzene, pyrene and naphthalene, and the samples from one of the rubber cribs contained o-xylene. This is consistent with the expected results, but the detected concentrations were lower than literature reported values.

• This report represents the work of one or more WPI undergraduate students submitted to the faculty as evidence of completion of a degree requirement. WPI routinely publishes these reports on its website without editorial or peer review.

Creator

• Cristiano, Lisa
• Patel, Nihal
• Harter, Rayna
• Scariati, Alexandra
• Vreeland, Avery
• Penkala, Matthew
• Grenier, Drew
• Rhodes, Isabelle
• O'donnell, Logan

Publisher

• Worcester Polytechnic Institute

Identifier

• E-project-042222-095737
• 63176

Keyword

• Water contamination
• mobilization
• Fire

Advisor

• Bergendahl, John Andrew
• Jayachandran, Jagannath
• Dittami, James P.
• Rangwala, Ali S.

Year

• 2022

Date created

• 2022-04-22

Resource type

• Major Qualifying Project

Major

• Chemical Engineering
• Mechanical Engineering
• Civil Engineering
• Chemistry

Rights statement

• In Copyright