Innumerable birds and animals die each year due to catastrophic oil spills - especially when contaminating river or ocean water. So, for cleaning these devastating oil spills on oceans, lakes and other waterways, U.S. scientists have developed a new efficient and effective technology.
Two University of California-Santa Barbara researchers have constructed an improved version of the mechanical skimmer. Mechanical skimmer is the mainstay device used to recover oil spilled on water.
Unlike the typical skimmer — consisting of a revolving steamroller-like drum for picking up a film of oil on the drum’s surface — the new mechanical skimmer uses a grooved surface!
The grooves have a larger surface area, enabling it to scoop up more oil than the smooth-surfaced traditional skimmer. The scraper — machined to precisely match the groove geometry — removes nearly 100 percent of the adhered oil with each rotation! That seems effective and efficient enough!
Comments
This is of course a welcome step to devise a new mechanism to clear oil spills effectively. However, one can be curious of whether the new mechanism is cost effective since most of the transportation is being carried by private entity who are very much keen on cost effectivity aspect of the mechanism.