Background Oil spills are horrible they damage the environment and may destroy ecosystems. This question has puzzled most scientists and elementary grade kids for a long time : What’s the best way to remove oil from water? Lets bump it up to using Marvel Mystery oil ,which is a Motor oil brand, so we have a nice bright red color. There are 3 main ways to separate oil from water and 3 absorbents that can be used.
The first way to remove oil is A belt, hose or disc, moves through a layer of oil, which causes the oil to adhere to the surface and be carried off. The second way is to Coalesce which is when smaller oil drops in an oil/water mixture will separate slowly or not at all. Coalescing media is placed in an oil separator to catch and accumulate the finer oil drops then merge them into larger drops that separate quickly.
The third way is where the three absorbents come in which is Gravity separation, which is a fancy way of saying the oil and water layers are prominent. Two of three of the absorbents are fairly fast at removing oil. The third, well helps decompose the oil faster. The first absorbent is human hair, most people can see why because it grasp onto oil and keeps it but that way is kind of messy. The second absorbent is Saw dust which is a little cleaner then the hair but just about as messy.
The third way which dose not really absorb as much as decompose the oil is using pure nitrogen and phosphorus to form little Tar balls which aren’t as deadly to the environment as the liquid crude oil. But no there is a forth absorbent let to be endorsed by the government. It is a polymer called WENV-250 and it was developed by a scientist to remove oil more defiantly. The polymer is non toxic so it may be used to put on birds feathers then simply pulled off.
