This new project will develop a program for evaluating oil pollution mitigation technologies to provide performance data to stakeholders to facilitate decision making for oil spill preparedness and response operations. Data will be collected through systematic and unbiased testing and disseminated to stakeholders and to the public. BSEE is working with the USCG to initiate this program to conduct testing in October 2022. Innovative sorbent products will be solicited through a Request for Information announcement and evaluated using the USCG's recently developed technology evaluation process. Technologies that are rated highly will be invited to submit their products for testing at Ohmsett using the recently developed sorbent field scale test protocol.
The RFI was published on Sam.gov and responses were evaluated by a technology evaluation team. Several sorbents of interest were identified. Sorbents were tested in October, 2022 at Ohmsett. The test data is currently being analyzed and compiled into a data summary report.