Oil Spills

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Oil Spills
American Institute of Chemical Engineers
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Petroleum Oil

• Petroleum oil is a dark colored, flammable liquid
  found throughout the world in underground pockets
  in the earths outer layer of rocks.
• Refined petroleum oil has many uses including
  gasoline for cars fuel for ships and airplanes
  heating fuel for homes, schools, and businesses
  the manufacture of plastic products and much
  more.
• Oil producers ship millions of barrels of
  petroleum oil around the world each day.
• Oil tankers are huge ships that can carry more
  than 200,000 tons of oil.

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Americas Worst Oil Spill
March 24, 1989 The Exxon Valdez oil tanker
scraped along a rocky ocean reef in Alaska
cutting open the hull of the ship. Thousands of
tons of oil spilled into the ocean - enough to
fill a football stadium.
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Damaging Effects of Oil Spills

• Oil on the waters surface can catch on fire and
  pollute the air.
• Oil can sink to the ocean floor and destroy the
  habitats of sea animals.
• Oil can react with oxygen in the air to form
  acids that are carried by wind and eventually
  fall back to the ground as acid rain.
• Oil washes up on beaches and marshes resulting in
  life threatening habitats for wildlife species.
• Sea turtles, birds, whales, fish, otters and
  other animals can become oil-soaked and die.
• Dear, bears, wolves, dogs, and cats can die from
  eating oil-soaked beach plants and animal
  carcasses.

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Oil clogs the spaces between a birds feathers,
making it impossible for them to fly. Many birds
drown and sink in the ocean, never making it to
the beaches.
Cleaning oiled birds is not always successful.
The birds are weak from struggling in the oil and
may be ill from digesting oil while trying to
clean their feathers.
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How can oil spills be cleaned up?

• Contain spill with oil booms. Booms are giant
  styrofoam logs wrapped in plastic that act like a
  floating fence.
• Vacuum up spilled oil with skimmer boats. A
  skimmer is a boat with special equipment that
  collects oil from the surface of calm waters.
• Absorb the oil with sawdust, straw, foam chips,
  or other sorbents.
• Use chemicals to disperse the oil into small
  droplets and let it drift out to sea.
• Biodegrade the oil by spreading microbes on
  beaches. Microbes are tiny organisms that can
  digest the oil.

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How can oil tanker spills be prevented?

• Design safer oil tankers.
• Double lined bottom instead of single metal
  layer.
• Separate compartments for oil storage. In a
  double-hull tanker, the cargo tanks are separated
  from the ships outer hull to protect against the
  impact of an accident.
• Thorough training of tanker crews.
• Develop better emergency procedures.
• Improve navigation skills.

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Properties of Oil that Affect Cleanup

• Viscosity
• A measure of a fluids resistance to flow.
  The hotter a fluid, the more easily it flows.
  Oil spilled in the cold waters of Alaska spreads
  slower than oil spilled off the warm coast of
  South America.
• Density
• A measure of how heavy a substance is in a
  fixed amount of volume. Many oils float on top
  of water because they are lighter than water.
• Absorptivity
• A measure of how easily a fluid is absorbed,
  or soaked up, by a different material. Engineers
  use absorbent pillows to soak up spilled oil.

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Activity Make a Vegetable-Oil Tanker
1. Shape a small piece of aluminum foil into a
canoe - a little bigger than your thumb. Try
to come up with a sturdy ship design. 2. Fill
your tanker with cooking oil and float it in a
dish half full of water. 3. When you are ready,
tip the boat over. 4. Try to contain the
floating oil with a loop of string or yarn. 5.
Now use some cotton balls, a ripped piece of
paper towel, or a small piece of lettuce to
soak up the oil. Try all three materials to
absorb the oil. 6. Record your experiment
results on a sheet of paper could the oil be
contained with string, what material soaked
up the oil the best, was your tanker easy to turn
over.
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Oil Spills

• Engineers and scientists develop the technology
  to help prevent oil spills and to clean up oil
  spills.