The purpose of this project is to improve the industry's ability to respond to oil spills. Specifically, the project will develop a software-based tool that can be used to guide in the selection and assessment of response countermeasures during spill events and exercises.
The objective of this research project is to determine whether the application of dispersants to an oil slick reduces the ability to subsequently recover oil with conventional skimming systems. The objectives will be met through a series of bench scale tests and full scale tank experiments at Ohmsett - The National Oil Spill Response Test Facility.
The objective of this proposal is to join with the Department of Fisheries and Oceans Canada - Center for Offshore Oil and Gas Environmental Research (COOGER) in planning an experimental oil spill in pack ice offshore Eastern Canadian in 2007/2008.
The objective of this project is to perform a comprehensive analysis of the adhesion processes between oil or ice-in-oil mixtures and various surface patterns and materials that are being used or proposed for use in oil skimmers, under cold climate conditions. This knowledge will help develop mechanical response equipment that can be efficiently used under these conditions. The work will include bench scale studies in our laboratory as well as field testing.
The purpose of this proposal is to conduct a planning workshop for an experimental oil spill in pack ice offshore Canada. Specifically this work will: Prepare a background information document for the proposed workshop;
Plan the workshop;
Facilitate the workshop; and,
Write a report on the results of the workshop.
Existing oleophilic skimmers collect oil at a relatively slow rate, in large part because the selection of materials used for the adhesion surfaces of the oil recovery units has not been based on their adhesion properties, but rather on historical practice or availability. Significant progress in material and polymer science in the past ten years now allows us to test materials with a large range of physical properties and tailor them on order to increase their affinity for oil.
The objective of the proposed work is to develop a methodology and equipment to enable researchers to produce large quantities of realistic water-in-oil emulsions. These emulsions will be used in test programs at Ohmsett and elsewhere.
This project was designed to find out the characterizations of waves in the Ohmsett Wave Basin facility. The scale of the Ohmsett test tank made this facility an excellent wave generation testing site. The project brought the correlating test data and system performance to those on natural bodies of water. During the tests, a probe was held at a fixed point to collect data for 3.5 minutes. The probe was then advanced down the tank for the run duration. A final 3.5 minutes of wave height data was collected at a fixed point at the end of the test run.
This project will distill research results collected during the past 6 years of decanting experiments (including the use of chemical demulsifiers to enhance water separation) into proposed guidelines for operational use and to transfer technology to responders and regulators. These proposed guidelines will include a review of regulatory issues and procedures for minimizing environmental impacts.
Tasks of this project are;
This project substantially increased the efficiency of mechanical oil spill recovery equipment by replacing traditional recovery unit materials with polymetric materials that have the highest affinity for oil and are specifically tailored to collect oil from water surfaces. The specific objectives of this research proposal were to determine; The magnitude of the physical processes that govern adhesion of oil to polymetric materials;
The material(s) that have the greatest affinity for different types of oils at various weathering degrees;
