Oil Droplets News

Danish company Green Instruments has entered a major agreement with Hudong-Zhonghua Shipbuilding for the delivery of equipment that detects oil mist and vapor on ships and triggers an alarm before fires can develop and endanger the crew, ship, equipment, and environment.The shipyard now installs Green Instruments’ equipment on every new vessel built.Oil mist is formed by oil droplets floating in the air and can ignite at low temperatures. Green Instruments’ oil mist detector is designed to register the slightest traces of oil mist and vapor from hydraulic oils and bunker fuel…

Heriot-Watt scientists have cracked the genetic code of the marine bacteria which helped ‘eat’ the oil spilled in the Deepwater Horizon disaster, information which could aid clean-up efforts for any future major spill. Dr Tony Gutierrez, Associate Professor of Microbiology at Heriot-Watt, was in the US at the time of the disaster and was able to perform experiments with samples from oil-contaminated waters of the Gulf of Mexico shortly after the spill occurred, samples that contained key species of bacteria that fed on the oil. Experiments with the samples revealed that certain bacteria had thrived on the oil that gushed into the Gulf, devouring the oil as a preferred food source.

At the legislative hearing on the use of dispersants in the BP oil spill, Lisa P. Jackson, Administrator of the U.S. Chairman Mikulski, Ranking Member Shelby and Members of the Subcommittee, thank you for the opportunity to testify on the role of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in the Deepwater Horizon BP oil spill response. My testimony today will provide you with an overview of EPA’s role and activities in the affected Gulf Coast region following the April 20, 2010 Deepwater Horizon mobile offshore drilling unit explosion and resulting oil spill as well as a summary of our primary environmental activities, including dispersant use, waste management, and beach cleanup.

EnSolve’s PetroLiminator System Uses Patented Bioremediation Technology to Remove Emulsified Oil EnSolve Biosystems has been awarded a contract from the U.S. Maritime Administration (MARAD) to supply a PetroLiminator Oil Water Separator for treating bilge water from its fleet service craft at the Suisun Bay Reserve Fleet, Calif. The patented PetroLiminator system uses a three-stage process to treat the oily water. In the first stage, free-phase oil is separated and removed to a collection tank, where it can be recycled or burned. In Stage II, the oily water passes through a bioremediation chamber containing hydrocarbon-degrading microbes, which consume the emulsified oil droplets.

By Rob Stephenson and Bruce Tennant, McKay Creek Tech.; and Don Hartle and George Geatros Vancouver Shipyards Co. Ltd. Vancouver Shipyards is part of the Washington Marine Group, the largest shipbuilding, ship maintenance and repair, and marine transportation company in Canada. Inherent to this scale of operation, the Washington Marine Group generates large quantities of emulsified oily wastewater. Managing the oily bilge water, ballast water, fuel/slop tanks, tank wash water from gas freeing operations, and wastewater from pressure washing machinery was becoming a big and expensive problem at Vancouver Shipyards. Both salt and fresh wastewaters are contaminated with emulsified oil and grease…