Slick solution for oil spills set to clean up

20-Apr-2018 - Australia

Polluted beaches, oily water, dead birds and marine life destruction caused by crude oil spills could be a thing of the past with pioneering new research led by Flinders University.

An exciting, more sustainable answer to effectively clean up oil spill destruction follows development of a new way to quickly soak up crude oil with an absorbent polymer – itself made from waste products from the petroleum and refining industries. In an environmental win-win, the new type of polymer made from waste cooking oil and sulphur (a by-product of the petroleum industry) has the ability to clean up crude oil and diesel spills.

Better still, because this highly buoyant polymer acts like a sponge to absorb the waste materials from sea water, the polymer can be squeezed to recover the oil and then reused. Award-winning scientist Dr Justin Chalker, Senior Lecturer in Synthetic Chemistry at Flinders University, is leading an international research team responsible for the discovery.

He is delighted that chemists are finding new ways to provide cheap and effective solutions to curb the damage caused by oil spills, and even mercury in the environment. “This is an entirely new and environmentally beneficial application for polymers made from sulphur,” says Dr Chalker. “This application can consume excess waste sulfur that is stockpiled around the globe and may help mitigate the perennial problem of oil spills in aquatic environments.”

Oil spills are a major global issue, with the International Tanker Owners Pollution Federation reporting about 7000 tonnes of crude oil spilling from tankers into oceans in 2017 alone.

A recent large oil spill off Borneo, for example, and prompted Indonesian authorities to declare a State of Emergency.

The international team of researchers point to the effects of recent large-scale spillage catastrophes as a potent reason for their research and potential use in the field – in particular, the explosion on the Deepwater Horizon offshore drilling rig on 20 April 2010 and subsequent release of approximately 4.9 million barrels of crude oil into the Gulf of Mexico.

Hundreds of smaller spills of diesel fuel and other petroleum products affect developing countries in Africa, Asia and South America, for example in the Niger Delta and Amazon basin of Ecuador. The new material made from cheap and sustainable products will help respond to these developing countries where smaller, localised spills threaten groundwater, drinking water and important food staples such as fish.

“This is a new class of oil sorbents that is low-cost, scalable, and enables the efficient removal and recovery of oil from water,” says Dr Chalker.

Original publication

M. J. H. Worthington, C. J. Shearer, L. J. Esdaile, J. A. Campbell, C. T. Gibson, S. K. Legg, Y. Yin, N. A. Lundquist, J. R. Gascooke, I. S. Albuquerque, J. G. Shapter, G. G. Andersson, D. A. Lewis, G. J. L. Bernardes, J. M. Chalker; "Sustainable Polysulfides for Oil Spill Remediation: Repurposing Industrial Waste for Environmental Benefit"; Adv. Sustainable Syst.; 2018

https://www.chemeurope.com/en/news/1154619/slick-solution-for-oil-spills-set-to-clean-up.html