Understanding and Improving Sorbents for Floating Oil

摘要

Acquisition of floating oil by sorbents involves a balance between internal permeation processes and external phenomena occurring in the oil pool. As a basis for improving sorbents and sorbent systems, this program considers internal and external processes from a theoretical viewpoint, alone and in combination. Corroborative experiments are presented using selected oils and sorbents, including microporous polyolefin foams prepared as part of the study. It is found that most natural sorbents have an excessive content of dead ends and constrictions in their porous structure, while common synthetic reticulated foams are coarser than the theoretical ideal. An optimum sorbent body should also provide better opportunity for formation of meniscus pools than offered by small, low density, high floating sorbents, and should take up oil at a rate low enough to avoid local film depletion regions which impede further oil acquisition. Methods of meeting these requirements are described. The report also discusses the potential advantages of mobile sorbent bodies capable of moving toward regions of abundant oil in reaction to asymmetric oil flow patterns induced by the sorbent itself.