REMEDIATION TECHNIQUES FOR

OIL SPILLS
 CONTENTS

• Oil spills
• Why it is necessary to remediate?
• Remediation techniques for marine environment
• Remediation techniques for soil
 OIL SPILLS

• Petroleum is one of the most important energy resource and a raw material for different industries.

• But oil spills during exploration, transportation, and refining can occur that cause some environmental

problems to soil, groundwater and air.

• There are various remediation techniques available for environmental restoration activities and can be

classified in several ways such as in situ or ex situ.

• Therefore, there are also some remediation techniques for oil spills as well in water or on land.
 Oil Spills
• Oil spill is an environmental disaster that occurs due
to release of liquid petroleum into the environment.

• This may happen accidentally, intentionally, or

resulted from everyday human activities.

• There have been several oil spills in the last many

years in various regions of the world.

• The largest spill that has taken place resulted into 210
million tons of oil loss occurred at Mexico in 2010.
 • Remediation of oil spills is a serious issue because of its adverse effects on
the biosphere.
• Oil spreads on the top surface of water and form a horizontal smooth and
slippery surface known as slick.
• It forms thin coating on the bird’s feathers which loses its insulating
Why properties and results in freezing death.

Remediation • It will also reduce the amount of oxygen dissolving from air in water which
is necessary for marine life.
is Necessary • Oil spill has toxic impact on aquatic animals and damages their food
for Oil resources and habitats.

Spills? • Therefore, proper remediation must be done after oil spillage.

• If oil spill occurred at soil it will damage soil properties and make it unfit for
vegetation.
 Types of Remediation Techniques
Remediation techniques can be categorized as:
• Physical treatments
With only one process. Physical treatments involve removal of the hazard through physical
means.
• Biological treatment
Biodegradation, falling under the biological treatment category.
• Chemical treatment
It involve the application of chemical agents to promote extraction of the hazardous
substance.
• The relative benefit of the various remediation methods has dependence in large-scale applicability
as well as overall cost.
 Effective attempts have been made in remediating the marine
Marine environment.

Remediation (A) Physical Remediation

(B) Chemical Remediation
(C) Thermal Remediation
 Physical Remediation Techniques

• Physical remediation methods are mostly to control oil spills in a water environment.

• There are two main steps in controlling the oil spills include containment and recovery.

• They are mainly used as a barrier to control the spreading oil spill without changing
its physical and chemical characteristics.
 Physical Remediation Techniques
Different equipment's are used to control oil spills which are as
follows
(A) Boomers
• Boomers are floatation device which act like physical barriers
which would not allow the oil to spread in water so that oil could
be recovered.
• During recovery period, they are sailed through the heaviest
sections of the spill at slow speed and a shipping vessel scoops
the oil and traps it between the angle of the boom and the vessel
hull.
• They are also characterized into fence boomer, curtain boomer
and fire-resistant boomer on the basis of floating tendency,
material with which they are made weight and stopping
tendency.
PHYSICAL
REMEDIATION
TECHNIQUES
(B) Skimmers
• They helps in the recovery of spread oil
with the help of boomers.
• Oleophilic skimmers try to trap the oil
from the surface with help of belts, disks,
continuous chain of oleophilic material and
then oil is squeezed out in the recovery
tank.
• Weir skimmers use dam for trapping the
oil inside and then it can be pumped out
through a pipe or hose to storage tank for
recycling purpose. Type and the thickness
of oil spill determine the success of
skimming.
• Skimmers are effective and work efficiently
in calm water.
• But they can clogged by the debris in
 • Absorbents which are oleophilic and hydrophobic in nature come out as a
good controller of oil spills.
• After skimming operation, adsorbent are used to clean the remaining oil.
• These adsorbents can be natural organic, inorganic or synthetic materials.
• Natural organic sorbents includes peat, hay, feathers, ground corncob
Adsorbent etc.
• They can soak up from 3 to 15 times their weight in oil.
Materials • Natural inorganic sorbent includes perlite vermiculite, glass, clay, wool,
sand and volcanic ash. They can absorb up to 4 to 20 times their weight
in oil.
• Synthetic absorbents include materials similar to plastic like polyethylene,
and nylon fibers. They can absorb up to 70 times weight in oil but cannot be
cleaned and reused.
 Chemical Remediation

• Chemical remediation methods are among the best remediation techniques available for both on shore
and offshore.

• They not only block the spreading of oil spill but also protect the sensitive marine habitat.

• They are usually used in addition with physical methods in marine oil spill remediation.

• In this technique physical and chemical property of oil is being changed.

• The chemicals which control oil spills include dispersants and solidifies.
 DISPERSANTS AND SOLIDIFIERS

Dispersants are applied through spraying the water with the

chemical and confirming the mixing by wind or propeller of boat.
Dispersants have capabilities to break down the slick of oil into
smaller droplets and transfer it into the water column where it
undergoes rapid dilution and can be easily degraded.
Solidifiers are those hydrophobic polymers which
on reaction with oil convert it into solid rubber
state which can be easily removed.
 Thermal Remediation
• Thermal remediation method involves the burning of oil.
• Through this technique high rates of oil can be easily removed by using minimal
specialized equipment, like fire resistant boom or igniters.
• Thermal technique is more beneficial in calm wind environment and for fresh
spills or refined products which can burn quickly without any harm to marine life.
• Fire resistance booms are used to accumulate oil and concentrate into a slick that
is thick enough to burn.
• The left residue is removed by the mechanical means.
• The thick oil and high supply oxygen condition are important for its success.
• Factors affecting the thermal methods are water temperature, speed, wave
amplitude, wind direction, slick thickness, oil type and amount of weathering and
emulsification that has occurred.
 Bioremediation
• Bioremediation method is a very simple and cheap remediation technique.

• This method is used to clean the soil from oil spills.

• In this method, microorganisms degrade and metabolize any chemical

substance and re-establish environmental quality.

• Microorganisms fasten the natural weakling process by assimilating

organic molecules to cell biomass with carbon dioxide, water and heat as
by products.
 Bioremediation

• Bioremediation technology exploits various naturally occurring mitigation processes:

• Natural attenuation
• Bio stimulation
• Bioaugmentation
 Methods of Bioremediation
• Bioremediation which occurs without human intervention other than
monitoring is often called natural attenuation.
• This natural attenuation relies on natural conditions and behavior of soil microorganisms that are indigenous
to soil.
• Bio stimulation utilizes indigenous microbial populations to remediate contaminated soils.
• Bio stimulation consists of adding nutrients and other substances to soil to catalyze natural attenuation
processes.
• Bioaugmentation involves introduction of exogenic microorganisms (sourced from outside the soil
environment) capable of detoxifying a particular contaminant, sometimes employing genetically altered
microorganisms.
 Bioremediation

• For different hydrocarbons there are different microorganisms that have been used.

• They work with different degradation mechanisms depending on the type of hydrocarbon

present in oil.

• The best degrader in the entire microorganism is bacteria.

• Good concentration of nutrients like nitrogen and phosphorus are growth inhibitor of

hydrocarbon-degrader.

• Because of environment friendly and economic properties, bioremediation has become

an advantageous technique for remediation.

 Bioremediation

• During bioremediation, microbes utilize chemical contaminants in the soil as an energy source
and, through oxidation-reduction reactions, metabolize the target contaminant into useable
energy for microbes.
• By-products (metabolites) released back into the environment are typically in a less toxic form
than the parent contaminants.
• For example, petroleum hydrocarbons can be degraded by microorganisms in the presence of
oxygen through aerobic respiration.
• The hydrocarbon loses electrons and is oxidized while oxygen gains electrons and is reduced.
• The result is formation of carbon dioxide and water .
 Bioremediation
• When oxygen is limited in supply or absent, as in saturated or anaerobic soils or lake sediment,

anaerobic (without oxygen) respiration prevails.

• Generally, inorganic compounds such as nitrate, sulfate, ferric iron, manganese, or carbon

dioxide serve as terminal electron acceptors to facilitate biodegradation.

• Three primary ingredients for bioremediation are:

1) Presence of a contaminant

2) An electron acceptor

3) Presence of microorganisms that are capable of degrading the specific contaminant.

 Bioremediation

• Generally, a contaminant is more easily and quickly degraded if it is a naturally occurring

compound in the environment, or chemically similar to a naturally occurring compound, because
microorganisms capable of its biodegradation are more likely to have evolved.

• Petroleum hydrocarbons are naturally occurring chemicals; therefore, microorganisms which are
capable of attenuating or degrading hydrocarbons exist in the environment.

• Development of biodegradation technologies of synthetic chemicals such DDT is dependent on

outcomes of research that searches for natural or genetically improved strains of microorganisms
to degrade such contaminants into less toxic forms.
 Landfarming
• Landfarming is a soil bioremediation technique that involves
mixing of the hydrocarbon-contaminated soil. It involves
relying on the biological, physical and chemical processes
within the soil for biodegradation.
• The technology has been employed since the 1980s due to its
simplicity and cost-effectiveness.
• It is a ‘low-tech’ oil spill control method specialized for the
clean-up of oil-polluted uppermost soil surfaces.
• It can be carried out in situ or ex situ.
• In ex situ, the contaminated soil is often transferred to a
treatment site where it is spread over a prepared soil surface
and tilled periodically for aerobic microbial degradation to
occur.
 Landfarming
• However, this simple technology is riddled with inherent challenges such as the
inhalation of hydrocarbon volatiles by humans and the risk of other hydrocarbon
contaminants leaching through the soil profile to the groundwater region.
• This challenge has been managed in recent times by providing the treatment site with
a layered polythene material about 250 µm in thickness, which is laid at the bottom of the
topsoil in order to prevent the leachates from seeping to the groundwater zone.
• Also, the dispersed hydrocarbon volatiles have been controlled by building a greenhouse
to confine the extent of diffusion.