| dc.description.abstract | The effect of oil spills in marine environment has resulted in huge negative environmental impacts and economic loss. The Deepwater Horizon oil spill of 2010 is the most recent, and the worst spill in the world, which affected more than 8000 kinds of marine organisms and cost around $65 Billion. Hence, it is imperative to have in place an effective and efficient oil spill recovery system. The research focuses on developing a chemical oil recovery method called oil herding. Herder is an amphiphilic oil-collecting agent, that is designed to spray around the oil spill areas and can retract oil slick from a thin layer to a thick mass, which is easier for further spill recovery. The application of oil herder lowers the air-water tension and causes retraction of the oil slick. The commercial oil herders like Silsurf A108 and Silsurf A004-D are effective, but their toxic impact to environment is undocumented, and they are chemically stable, which makes them remain on water body for a long period. The proposed project aims to develop an innovative oil herder from a natural plant-based product, Konjac. The base material used to develop the proposed oil herder konjac is derived from konjac root, commercially known as konjac glucomannan (KGM). KGM is a natural polysaccharide and has flexibility in functionalization. The easily functionalized hydroxyl groups in the KGM molecular structure allow hydrophobic tails to be attached to the hydrophilic backbone to form the surfactant-like structure. The functionalized KGM is demonstrated in this research to efficiently herd lighter oils like dodecane. KGM was found to have no Krafft temperature and that enables it to be effective in herding oil in cold waters. The applications of KGM based surfactants as dispersants or as agents aiding dispersants in oil spill mitigation is an area which augurs more research. | en |
