Eco-friendly oil spill treatment

UAE scientists have warned of the environmental impacts of the 'landfarming' treatment of inland oil spills. The process exposes people to dangerous levels of toxic and cancer-causing substances, they say.

Suggesting a new but safer laboratory treatment, the scientists said landfarming is also an inefficient process that transfers the problem from soil to the atmosphere. In this process, oil contaminated soil is spread over a large area for oil degradation.

The oil releases volatile organic compounds to the atmosphere and heavier fractions seep into the soil. Farid Benyahia, Associate Professor of Chemical Engineering and Research Coordinator at the UAE University (UAEU), told Gulf News that up to 50 per cent of crude oil could evaporate within few days, especially in hot climates.

"It can pollute underground aquifers with potentially disastrous effects in arid zones where water resources are scarce," said Benyahia, also principal investigator of a research project to find a solution to the problem.

His team includes Mohamed Abdulkarim and Abderrazag Zekri from the Department of Chemical and Petroleum Engineering, Dr Abdel Mohsen Mohamed from the Department of Civil Engineering, and Omar Chaalal from the General Requirements Unit of the UAEU.

The scientists have developed a biological treatment process, called Biopile System, and collected large amounts of bioremediation data for analysis, design, and development of large-scale treatment of contaminated soils.

"Assistance from one of the oil companies can boost our efforts," said Benyahia, urging them to take an interest in the project and finance it through a slight cut in their non-developmental expenses.

The UAEU's Scientific Research Affairs Sector is currently financing this multi-phased project. The scientists consider it an exceptional endeavour since most of the earlier studies are focused on offshore oil spills.

He said inland oil spills have received much less attention than spills in the sea because of media focus on sea spills, though both can be ecological disasters.

"In fact, the environmental impact assessment of major inland oil spills is still uncertain, and certainly played down by major oil companies for obvious reasons. The fast evaporation of hydrocarbon can easily make it a health hazard. However, no major study addressed this problem scientifically," he said.

Benyahia said the newly developed Biopile technique is quite safe to apply in a laboratory environment and emissions of volatile compounds into the atmosphere are radically reduced.