A new method for handling oil spill materials

Several handling methods for oil spill products have been investigated during recent years. A new process is described here for the treatment of chocolate mousse collected from sandy shores. This resulted from an engineering thesis undertaken at the Delft University of Technology in co-operation with Rijkswaterstaat, North Sea Directorate.

In this process, sand is added to and thoroughly mixed with the mousse. As a result of mixing, clean sand is separated from the mousse while the mousse itself separates considerable amounts of almost unpolluted water. The process is based on the differences between the interfacial tensions of sands, oil and water. The use of chemicals is therefore not necessary.

Although very promising results have been obtained at laboratory scale, investigations have to be continued for scaling-up and optimisation of the separation process.