| UC Toxics News: Spring 2006
Victoria Broje, a doctoral student at UC Santa Barbara and current TSR&TP fellowship recipient, presented her research on improving oil spill recovery. “Oil spills don’t have to be slicks, black, or smell to be a problem,” said Broje. The viscosity can vary from water-like to a peanut butter consistency and flammability varies as well. Within a matter of hours after spilling, the physical properties of the oil can be completely different from the spill source. Broje reviewed the various known methods for cleanup: doing nothing, using dispersants, in situ burning, and mechanical recovery. She chose to focus her research on improving mechanical recovery, a process that hadn’t changed since it was first introduced more than 50 years ago. “Mechanical recovery is one of the oldest and most popular methods and the first option of all cleanup operations. It’s also the most expensive, inefficient, and time-consuming method,” explained Broje. Skimmers are used with rotating drums and the contact surface is the most critical element. Broje’s research group came up with a recovery surface that was a series of grooves that increases the surface area of the drum up to four times and creates a meniscus area for oil to pool. They also developed a scraper to match the grooves and the new device is nearly 100% efficient. The group has a patent through UC Santa Barbara and the new drums are being manufactured this year. Recovery can be doubled and tripled with these new drums versus the old. “It costs the recovery companies so much to pay for personnel out on the ocean, so it’s a real economic benefit to decrease recovery time. We’ve increased efficiency by 200% and industry is very happy,” said Broje. Broje said her research was desperately needed and she acknowledged the TSR&TP for supporting a study that no one else would fund. The fellowship enabled her group to secure a U.S. Department of Interior grant and a Minerals Management Service grant to study their model in icy conditions. |
