Oil Spill Remediation

Shellbond has proven to be an effective reagent and environmentally safe product. For example: when added to either polluted waste water in open air waste lagoons or municipal sewage treatment, oil based manufacturing, marine oil spills, the ShellBond powder bonds to the oils  and the solid material is bonded and precipitated from the water column. Because oil spills cause great losses both environmentally and, of course, financially, processes for remediating the effects of oil spills are in great need.  

Several methods of treating oil spills are known. Various mechanical devices such as fences, booms, and skimmers have been used to physically contain or remove oil that has been spilled on a water surface. Inherent limitations to these techniques such as little or no wave action, are indicative of unrealistic conditions in an open ocean environment. In addition, several types of oil adsorbents have also been used in the past with minimal success. Various chemical treatments have been used to either contain or coagulate spilled oil and further pollute the marine environment. While these existing methods aid in removing spilled oil from a water surface, they fail to provide an adequate environmentally acceptable solution which is able to confine, coagulate and control spilled oil in a short period of time before the oil sinks below the surface of the water and forms an emulsion with the water.

Due to the nature of oil and water, i.e. the lighter components of oil typically evaporate from the surface of the water in 24-48 hours, while the heavier components of the oil typically sink below the surface of the water and form an emulsion with the water. Emulsion formation is a particular problem in rough waters and, with current technology, removal of the oil from the contaminated water is virtually impossible once the oil has emulsified. Thus, current remediation efforts require a rapid response to the contamination event which, in practice is not always possible. It appears that ShellBond’s crystalline structure, exhibits an unusually high propensity for bonding with oils, oil based products and heavy metals. It is indicative of a covalent bonding process. A covalent bond is a form of chemical bonding that is characterized by the sharing of pairs of electrons between atoms, or between atoms and other covalent bonds. In short, attraction-to-repulsion stability that forms between atoms when they share electrons is known as covalent bonding.   

ShellBond has been applied to various controlled experiments in coastal waters that had oil discharges/leakages and surface spills of marine diesel and Bunker “C” type oil. Fast acting, the powdery ShellBond attracted to/or bonded with the oil sinking it out of sight.  Since the calcium hydrate is produced from skeletal material or shell, it poses no environmental hazard being left on the water bottom, whereas the oil will gradually decompose through the action of enzymes and bacteria. Example: Similar experiments with local oily storm water ponds showed that ShellBond (approximately 2 oz) was added to liter jars of storm water. Within less than 3 minutes the ShellBond precipitated out the solids and suspended materials coalescing on the bottom of the jar. 

In summary, ShellBond produced from cow bones produces an environmentally safe product from a waste product that applied to marine based oil spills, bonds to the hydrocarbons and will sink the combined product in the water column. The high levels of Phosphate is an added advantage in assisting in breaking down and further dissolving the oil.  ShellBond is made from a recycled waste product converted into environmentally green product for removing oil from our oceans and beaches.