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- Spring
- Oil skimmer concept model holds promise for cleaning marshes
Linda F. Benedict, Bogren, Richard C.
A device that can "harvest" an oil spill in open seas or in a marsh – much like a combine harvests wheat and eliminates the chaff – was built as a working concept model by LSU AgCenter engineer Chandra Theegala.
Theegala, a professor in the Department of Biological and Agricultural Engineering who has taught fluid mechanics for years, now waits for sufficient resources to bring the concept model to a full-blown working prototype.
Theegala developed the idea in response to the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico in April. His invention uses a boom to skim surface oil and water through a positive displacement pump and into a container where the oil and water separate naturally. The oil floats up through a pipe into a collection vessel while the water goes another direction and is discharged back to where it came from.
"It relies on the principles of density difference between the two liquids in a U-tube and has no moving parts other than the pump," Theegala said. "It works with a commercially available, engine-powered diaphragm pump. Unlike other types of pumps that emulsify the oil, the diaphragm pump keeps the oil floating on the water. It works in an up-and-down motion – like chest compression in CPR."
Theegala’s initial concept model can pump about 4,000 gallons of an oil-water-air mixture per hour.
"A fully working model could handle 10 times that volume," he said. "The material cost on this concept unit is around $7,000 and includes the pontoon unit and the pump."
Rick Bogren
(This article was published in the spring 2010 issue of Louisiana Agriculture.)
The LSU AgCenter and the LSU College of Agriculture