a bird’s feathers enabled it to fly
float and regulate its body temperature
unfortunately feathers also absorb oil
taking away these crucial abilities
images like these have come to represent
the environmental toll of oil spills
like the Deepwater Horizon disaster that
dumped nearly 5 million barrels into the
Gulf of Mexico following that spill
responders contained surface oil using
booms and try to break the oil up using
chemical dispersants first for the first
time ever dispersants were used deep in
the ocean near the leak source as well
as on the surface
Steve Moravsky led the government’s
efforts to determine the effects of the
Gulf spill and the methods used to
contain it the use of deepwater
dispersants was an experiment you know
it’s hard to say that but it’s exactly
what it was obviously this this is a
question of environmental trade-off do
you fight the oil at the surface and on
the beach or do you fight it in the deep
sea that got Bob Lochhead and his
colleagues at the University of Southern
Mississippi thinking what if there was a
way to break the oil down and keep it
from sticking all while being
environmentally friendly and where this
came from was when we saw the oil spill
immediately we thought of how the
laundry detergents work laundry
detergents contain chemical compounds
that stop dirt from sticking to clothes
and I thought could we use this same
technology in the oil to stop the oil
from sticking to things like bird
feathers oil sticks to all kinds of
organic materials including feathers and
hair so the standard methods of
protecting wildlife from a spill are to
try to block the oil from reaching
sensitive areas and clean the animals
that get oiled but what if chemistry can
keep the oil from sticking in the first
place so lock head and his researchers
went to the lab looking for a way to
complement the strategy of using
dispersants to break up the oil because
of the urgent nature of the spill the
team needed answers quickly so they used
a specially designed robot that allowed
them to try thousands of composite
daily see the problem you’ve got with
these systems you’re looking for a
composition that’s like looking for a
needle in a haystack you may have to
screen thousands those competitions
before you find one this one works well
the problem is made only months to do
this the oil t can’t wait twenty years
called the oils murder ground the way we
were able to do this you’ve seen the
robots and that robot now can make up a
ten thousand composition today because a
normal formulator in the lab doesn’t
beat ten Timothy the team started with
chemical compounds widely used in
detergents and identified other chemical
contenders but none really stuck to the
oil then they tried soy lecithin which
is used in everything from candy to
cough medicine experiments showed that
the soy lecithin coats the oil droplets
preventing them from sticking to
anything but still allows microbes in
ensuring that the oil breaks down
in the lab the research team prepares
emulsions of oil and water the team is
also testing absorbent material that
acts like a giant paper towel when
pulled through a plume of oil absorbing
oil but not water now the researchers
are trying out the unique mixture in the
lab a feather dipped in oil and sea
water in a tank dipped in untreated oil
the feather is like a sponge soaking up
the reddish oil but in the tank with oil
and the successful additives the feather
comes out nearly clean Lochhead says the
approach needs more development but he’s
optimistic they’ll be ready for the next
big spill we’re a proof-of-concept level
we’ve proved that yes this thing will
work what we need to do is is now find
the ideal mixture that works to find how
we put it together into products how
that product will be stored and make
sure it’s good five year shelf life and
how eventually we put hopefully on every
rig and every tanker just like a fire
extinguisher researchers hope they will
have a prototype ready in a year and
clear regulatory hurdles within another
year for the wildlife most threatened by
oil spills a viable product can’t come
too soon
you
float and regulate its body temperature
unfortunately feathers also absorb oil
taking away these crucial abilities
images like these have come to represent
the environmental toll of oil spills
like the Deepwater Horizon disaster that
dumped nearly 5 million barrels into the
Gulf of Mexico following that spill
responders contained surface oil using
booms and try to break the oil up using
chemical dispersants first for the first
time ever dispersants were used deep in
the ocean near the leak source as well
as on the surface
Steve Moravsky led the government’s
efforts to determine the effects of the
Gulf spill and the methods used to
contain it the use of deepwater
dispersants was an experiment you know
it’s hard to say that but it’s exactly
what it was obviously this this is a
question of environmental trade-off do
you fight the oil at the surface and on
the beach or do you fight it in the deep
sea that got Bob Lochhead and his
colleagues at the University of Southern
Mississippi thinking what if there was a
way to break the oil down and keep it
from sticking all while being
environmentally friendly and where this
came from was when we saw the oil spill
immediately we thought of how the
laundry detergents work laundry
detergents contain chemical compounds
that stop dirt from sticking to clothes
and I thought could we use this same
technology in the oil to stop the oil
from sticking to things like bird
feathers oil sticks to all kinds of
organic materials including feathers and
hair so the standard methods of
protecting wildlife from a spill are to
try to block the oil from reaching
sensitive areas and clean the animals
that get oiled but what if chemistry can
keep the oil from sticking in the first
place so lock head and his researchers
went to the lab looking for a way to
complement the strategy of using
dispersants to break up the oil because
of the urgent nature of the spill the
team needed answers quickly so they used
a specially designed robot that allowed
them to try thousands of composite
daily see the problem you’ve got with
these systems you’re looking for a
composition that’s like looking for a
needle in a haystack you may have to
screen thousands those competitions
before you find one this one works well
the problem is made only months to do
this the oil t can’t wait twenty years
called the oils murder ground the way we
were able to do this you’ve seen the
robots and that robot now can make up a
ten thousand composition today because a
normal formulator in the lab doesn’t
beat ten Timothy the team started with
chemical compounds widely used in
detergents and identified other chemical
contenders but none really stuck to the
oil then they tried soy lecithin which
is used in everything from candy to
cough medicine experiments showed that
the soy lecithin coats the oil droplets
preventing them from sticking to
anything but still allows microbes in
ensuring that the oil breaks down
in the lab the research team prepares
emulsions of oil and water the team is
also testing absorbent material that
acts like a giant paper towel when
pulled through a plume of oil absorbing
oil but not water now the researchers
are trying out the unique mixture in the
lab a feather dipped in oil and sea
water in a tank dipped in untreated oil
the feather is like a sponge soaking up
the reddish oil but in the tank with oil
and the successful additives the feather
comes out nearly clean Lochhead says the
approach needs more development but he’s
optimistic they’ll be ready for the next
big spill we’re a proof-of-concept level
we’ve proved that yes this thing will
work what we need to do is is now find
the ideal mixture that works to find how
we put it together into products how
that product will be stored and make
sure it’s good five year shelf life and
how eventually we put hopefully on every
rig and every tanker just like a fire
extinguisher researchers hope they will
have a prototype ready in a year and
clear regulatory hurdles within another
year for the wildlife most threatened by
oil spills a viable product can’t come
too soon
you
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