EVALUATING OIL DISPERSANT SYSTEMS VIA EMULSION STABILITY AND OPTICAL MICROSCOPY

摘要

Though chemical dispersants are employed to minimize the deleterious effects of oil spills, their diverse composition of organic solvents, surfactants, and additives may bestow further detrimental effects on marine environments. This study is part of a larger effort to engineer a novel dispersant that replaces surfactant molecules with mineral particles, thus allowing surfactants and particles to work in tandem to optimize oil slick degradation and emulsion stabilization efficacy.