The oil spill is becoming a huge problem, so I decided to do a science fair related project on it. I did write all this, and I have already contacted authorities about my idea, so there's no use in copying it. I would just like to know what some people think about it. And unless you have hours of spare time, I wouldn't advise reading the whole thing, and sort of skimming through it instead.
Objective: To compare twelve materials, and try to find one that will absorb oil, float, and can be contained.
Observation: Oil spills are very destructive to birds and marine life. Question/Problem: What product or material absorbs oil, and floats on water?
Hypothesis/prediction: I think that sphagnum peat moss will work the best, because it is already used for cleaning up oil spills.
Materials: Marvel mystery oil (red) Water (no chlorine or other chemicals added) Sorbets: sphagnum peat moss, bio-safe powder, a seas sponge, saw dust, marshmallows, perlite, sweeping compound, plastic sponge, nerf dart foam, fiberglass, Styrofoam (polystyrene) and poly urethane foam.
Procedure/experiment: We put sixteen ounces of water in each jar, and 2 1/2 ounces of marvel mystery oil in each one. Then, we add the sorbents to each jar. Next, we observed and documented each product for two days. We put lids on each jar to make sure that the water would not evaporate. One jar had a material called bio-safe, to experiment using bio-remediation. Bio-remediation means to break down the material using bacteria. We ground up Styrofoam and polyurethane in a food processor and thoroughly cleaned between loads to avoid cross-contamination. We put one cup of each sorbent in each jar, except for the sea sponge and plastic sponge, which were just pieces. The bio-remediation consisted of two teaspoons of bio-safe. Initial observation: First hour
1. Nerf foam: seems to pick up the oil very slowly. 2. Marshmallows: not absorbing oil, they are just absorbing in the oil. 3. Fiber glass: immediately soaked up oil, but is absorbing water and sinking. 4. Polyurethane foam: slowly absorbing oil, and floats. 5. Styrofoam: acts almost like a sponge, pulling the oil up through it, and floats 6. Sawdust: absorbed about half of the oil, and sank. 7. Sphagnum peat moss: picked up all of the oil, but is very slowly sinking. 8. Sea sponge: immediately picked up the oil, but is sinking slowly. 9. Plastic sponge:absorbed all the oil immediately, and is still floating. 10. Perlite: floating, but not really absorbing the oil. 11. Bio-safe: It sank, but is coming back up one piece at a time. 12. Clean sweep: most of it sunk, but some of it is still absorbing oil.
Observation after 24 hours:
1. Nerf Foam: Absorbed pretty much all of the oil, and is still floating. 2. Marshmallows: Nothing has happened yet. 3. Fiber Glass: Absorbed the oil, but sank. 4. Polyurethane foam: Still floating, and absorbed all of the oil. 5. Styrofoam: Sucked the oil to the top of the jar. Still floating. Working great. 6. Sawdust: All of the sawdust sank. 7. Sphagnum Peat moss: Absorbed all the oil, and most of it is still floating. 8. Sea Sponge: Absorbed all the oil, but slowly sank. 9. Plastic Sponge: Still floating, and absorbed all of the oil. 10. Perlite: Floating, but not absorbing oil. 11. Bio-safe: Floating, and it looks like itâs dissolving the oil. 12. Clean Sweep: Hasnât done anything, and it sank.
Final Observation (after 48 hours)
1. Nerf Foam: Absorbed almost all of the oil. Still floating. 2. Marshmallows: Hasnât made any progress; still floating. 3. Fiberglass: Absorbed all of the oil, and sank. 4. Polyurethane Foam: Has made what looks like a separate layer; because there is water between the part that has socked up the oil, and the part that hasnât. 5. Styrofoam: The oil has soaked through the Styrofoam. 6. Sawdust: No progress has been made. 7. Sphagnum Peat Moss: Still floating, and absorbed all of the oil. 8. Sea Sponge: Absorbed all the oil, but sank. 9. Plastic Sponge: Absorbed all of the oil, and still floating. 10. Perlite: Absorbed only a little bit of the oil, but still floating. 11. Bio-safe: Sank completely. 12. Clean sweep: Absorbed only a little bit of oil, and sunk.
Variables:
Controlled Variables: The controlled sample has sixteen ounces of water, and two and a half ounces of red oil, which remained unchanged. This provided a sample to control all of my experiments with.
Manipulated Variables: I added twelve different products to my jars, containing the exact amount of water and oil as the controlled sample. This way, I could observe the results. Responding Variables: Observing which products absorbed the oil the fastest, without sinking.
Conclusion: Only four of the twelve products absorbed all of the oil without sinking. The best products numbered in order, one being the best.
1. Ground up polyurethane foam. 2. Ground up polystyrene. (Styrofoam) 3. Plastic sponge. 4. Peat Moss.
Polyurethane foam soaked up all of the oil completely, and used a small amount of the foam that I put in the jar. It seemed to clump up on the water, which would make it easier to scoop up, and to remove.
Styrofoam absorbed all of the oil without sinking, but it is so light, I think that the wind would blow it around.
The Plastic Sponge worked well, but left a little bit of on the top of the water. It would work well mixed with other products.
Peat Moss also would work better mixed with other products, because it would help hold the mix together, since it is so heavy. It tended to sink somewhat.
Sorry to be Ranting Randy (BTW Randy is not my real name.) But why are people railing on BP so much? It's not like they WANT all this oil to leak, heck, they're losing money, morale, gallons upon gallons of oil, and rep! Sorry, I know what you're going to say, "They should be thinking up better ideas! It's their responsibility!" But as a person who just learned that Venus is actually hotter than Mercury, I don't think I can compete with Harvard and Duke educated people who are paid just to think up how to stop this, with the least impact on the economy!
BP shoudln't of drilled down in the Gulf anyways, and that is why I despise them. You can't burn all of the oil, it is flammable, but it has to be concentrated in an area, and it is floating apart, so its too late for that. And Hair. People down here (mobile) were putting hair into panty hose, makeshift booms. but BP told them to stop and they would not accept them anymore after the first day. Their clean up crews are not adequate at all, and they refuse to hire anyone because of the cost it would take to train all of the people. SCREW BP!!!!! Anyways, you send you ideas, it is a good try, but they will probably disreguard it along with the other thousands of ideas that have been sent.
Lol thanks for the encouragement, but the local authorities actually called me back about it. They said that they have lots of ideas, and they're taking mine into consideration. They're trying to find the best idea, and then send it to someone bigger. (like the governor) and then the governor, or whoever else gets it would send the best idea to the president, and his advisors. I don't expect mine to get that far, but it's worth a shot :P
They should just get a ship, put filters on either side, extending fifty feet and sweep the dam shoreline.
Anyways,
BP shoudln't of drilled down in the Gulf anyways, and that is why I despise them.
Yeah, because there is totally somewhere else to drill, what with South America and Africa being quite unstable, and the Arctic being shut down to oil despite the billions upon billions of barrels there.
They had no choice, I'm afraid.
But why are people railing on BP so much?
I'm not. I fully support BP, and prefer them over the government any day.
Asides from the grammatical error, I agree with you... Even though I'm heavily considering military, and therefore government service, I simply can't trust someone who's job it is to twist the truth so as to make it more useful to themselves.
I'm not dissin u or anything but it is always easier said then done.
Yeah, but he does make a good point, a simple solution like that would likely work quite well, if politics would get out of the picture.
Hahaha, I thought a bunch of ppl would hate on my last comment!
This wasn't made to be a debate thread, rather than stating your opinion on the issue.
I'm not dissin u or anything but it is always easier said then done.
Yes, but nothing's impossible. And that actually would be much more humane and cost - effective. But the only problem is that they need to find a material to sweep it with. They're not just gonna sweep through it with hair or hay. They're going to have the material in the water, soaking up the oil for extended periods of time.
Well, it should of been thought out by BP, they drilled in depths never before drilled in, and they should of know that the way the water flows here, if there was an oil leak, then it would spread very fast. I don't support BP, and I don't support Government sticking their noses in it. Truthfully it is their fault for making everyone so oil crazy.
But why are people railing on BP so much? It's not like they WANT all this oil to leak, heck, they're losing money, morale, gallons upon gallons of oil, and rep!
Let's say I'm driving down the street and I'm really really drunk. I start to pass out at the wheel and my car drifts onto the adjacent sidewalk, killing a person. Clearly I didn't intend to harm to kid and it's absolutely terrible for me personally. But just because you don't intend for something to happen doesn't mean you shouldn't be held accountable. So far, the evidence is looking like BP's maintenance of this oil rig was so poor that it could be considered criminal negligence. They didn't have enough life boats for the workers, and of the boats that were there, many of them didn't start. Once the explosion did happen, at least 2 different failsafes to prevent oil leakage were ineffective. This seems to be due completely to negligence.
Since the oil spill, it has come to the public's attention that BP doesn't have near the resources for handling oil spills as it claimed. To further complicate matters, BP is doing everything it can to avoid coming up with a solid amount for the oil gushing. The reason is twofold: 1) they want to avoid the hefty fines imposed by the US gov't which are based on how many barrels of oil leak in a day, and 2) they want to avoid the extremely negative publicity that will surely come out when the true numbers are revealed. Without these numbers, however, NOAA and others can't calculate how effective these techniques truly are.
So, to sum up: BP's actions before the explosion could be shown to be criminally negligent. BP's response to the spill has done more to exacerbate the problem than to solve it.
There are many other factors at play here. BP seems to be flatly denying the existence of underwater channels of hydrocarbons, and there is substantial evidence of cover ups going on for weeks after the explosion. All this is still conjecture, however, and I don't want to facilitate the spread of false information.
All this being said, I think it's absolutely clear that BP has violated both moral and legal obligations.
