Department of Chemical Engineering (IIT Delhi)

Report
12th October, 2015
Student Name: Kartik Chouhan
Entry No. : 2011CH70160
Project Title: Oil-soluble radioactive tracers adsorption on rocks
The project focuses on finding the oil wet surface area or the surface area in contact
with oil in a reservoir. The method for finding the surface area in a reservoir
involves the use of two radioactive tracers one of which is adsorbing while the other
is a passive tracer. The tracers and their detection methods are as follows:

Tracer

Detection Method

max (nm)

p-dibromobenzene

UV/Visible Spectroscopy

229 nm, 246 nm

Iodobenzene

UV/Visible Spectroscopy

228 nm, 264 nm

With GC failing to give appropriate results in experiments for minimum detectable

concentration calculation and the time for performing each experiment being large,
the detection method was changed to UV/Visible Spectroscopy.

UV/Visible spectroscopy can be used in analytical chemistry for quantitative

determination of different analytes. UV/Visible Spectroscopy refers to the absorption
or the reflectance spectroscopy in the uv-visible spectral region. It uses ultraviolet
and visible light to find the perceived colour of the solution in the given range. In
this region molecules go under electronic transitions and the absorbed wavelength
for the transition is calculated. Molecules containing -electrons can absorb energy
in this spectral region. This method can be used since both of the compounds are

aromatic compounds.

For the calculation of concentration Beer-Lamberts law is used,

A=log10(I/I0) = cL
Which states that the absorbance is directly proportional to the
concentration of solute in the solvent, where,
A = Absorbance of the solution
I = Intensity of light
Io = Intensity of light

Graphs showing absorbance

max

transmitted
incident

L = path length
= molar absorbance
c = concentration of species (that absorbs light)
The preliminary results reveal that the concentrated calculated for an
unknown solution is close to the actual value but some errors still remain
which may be due to improper calibration or human error during sample
preparation.
Marks obtained for the month of October is

0/ 1/ 2/ 3

Name of Supervisor:
Dr. Jyoti Phirani