Innumerable birds and animals die each year due to catastrophic oil spills – especially when contaminating river or ocean water. So, for cleaning these devastating oil spills on oceans, lakes and other waterways, U.S. scientists have developed a new efficient and effective technology.
Two University of California-Santa Barbara researchers have constructed an improved version of the mechanical skimmer. Mechanical skimmer is the mainstay device used to recover oil spilled on water.
Unlike the typical skimmer — consisting of a revolving steamroller-like drum for picking up a film of oil on the drum’s surface — the new mechanical skimmer uses a grooved surface!
The grooves have a larger surface area, enabling it to scoop up more oil than the smooth-surfaced traditional skimmer. The scraper — machined to precisely match the groove geometry — removes nearly 100 percent of the adhered oil with each rotation! That seems effective and efficient enough!
