Mopping Up Oily Oceans

In March, the grounded tanker Torrey Canyon spewed some 90,000 tons of crude oil into the coastal waters off southwestern Britain. Though only part of the oil reached the beaches, the accident cost Britain $7,000,000 in cleanup charges, polluted the sea from Cornwall to Brittany and dealt heavy damage to marine life in the area. And there are other vessels afloat that could make an even bigger mess.

Already 200,000-ton tankers ply the seas; 300,000-ton vessels are on order, and the advent of 500,000-ton jumbo tankers is fast approaching. Even under normal circumstances, such ships slowly foul the sea with oily tank washings, bilge and ballast water.

Fortunately, research scientists on both sides of the Atlantic have just demonstrated two new substances that seem to do well at cleaning up oil-fouled waters. In the U.S., Guardian Chemical Co. of Long Island City, N.Y., has produced a hydrocarbon known as Poly-complex A. When the new substance is sprayed on a slick, it breaks down the oil into tiny particles, combines with them and forms a chemical complex that is readily degraded by bacteria, sunlight and air. "The bacteria have a hard time tackling a big oil slick," says Guardian President Dr. Alfred R. Globus. "It's like eating a rubber raincoat. By breaking the oil down we give them something they can chew on."

At a demonstration on the Delaware River, eleven gallons of 50% Polycomplex A were sprayed on a 110-gallon oil slick. In two minutes, only a thin brown film remained; soon that disappeared. Similar tests conducted in tanks ashore proved just as successful. Six parts of Kuwait crude oil--the type carried by the Torrey Canyon--were dispersed by one part of Polycomplex A in five minutes.

Proven Principle. On the same day, Esso Petroleum of Great Britain held an oil disposal demonstration at its Fawley refinery near Southampton. Technicians poured a barrel of crude oil on a pond, then covered the slick with a shredded polyurethane foam developed by J. Bibby & Sons of Liverpool. The foam quickly turned black as it absorbed the oil. The oil-soaked foam was then simply trapped and towed ashore, where Esso showed how the oil could be pressed out for reuse.

Neither method has yet been tried on the open seas, where $26,400 worth of detergents are required to disperse 100 tons of floating oil, with no assurance that it will not subsequently coalesce again. The cost of the Guardian dispersal agent would be around $7,000 per hundred tons of oil--which would have made the Torrey Canyon bill about $6,000,000. Because less foam is required with the Esso technique, it could further reduce the expense of oil dispersal to about $1,300 per hundred tons--plus the cost of application and collection--if it proves successful on the open ocean.

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