ISSN: 2578-4846
Recent Technologies in Mitigating Oil Spill Accidents
Crude oil is a main source of power in the developed nations. Many sectors depend on it such as industry and power generation. Thus the need for crude oil is high. Despite the crude oil is considered non-renewable, a need to explore new sites such as off shore is now very popular. These sites include oil handling under sea level. Thus, an emergency plan should be prepared before dealing with any activity including crude oil or any of its components, examples of such activities as oil refining, storing, transporting, exploring and oil well drilling. These components have severe effects on the environment and its elements. Thus, the new developments and technologies in the response in emergency situationsin the case of oil spill accidents should be followed. This study shows the up to date developments in the field of discovering the oil spill locations, the new technologies in minimizing the harmful effects of spilled oil, and rehabilitation of the contaminated sites in the case of oil spill in water bodies. It is shown that the new developments in mitigating oil spills starts from monitoring the activities that handling crude oil and preparing emergency plans for worst possible scenarios. Following the international laws in dealing with crude oil helps a lot in preventing and mitigating the oil spill accidents. New developments in containing the oil spills are in using booms that are fabricated from high absorbing materials and manufacturing of cleaning agents that has the ability to dissolve the oil and its components (hydrophobic) that helps in removing spilled oil mainly from water. Â
Keywords:
Oil spill; Booms, Environment protection; Marine life
