Boom or Bust! Creating an Organic Boom to Absorb Oil on Water Surfaces

Overview

Objectives/Goals Objective: My engineering project goal was to create an organic, environmentally friendly sorbent containment boom, which could serve as a realistic alternative to chemical sorbents that may be toxic to the environment. Methods/Materials Materials: Boom Construction(per boom): organic cotton tubing organic cotton balls organic sphagnum peat moss empty 500 ml plastic water bottle 4 rubber bands ruler Boom Testing(per test): 20 gallon fish tank 10 gallons water 16 oz 10W-30 weight motor oil digital kitchen scale Methodology: Construct a tubular floating device lined with the organic cotton and sphagnum peat moss. Weigh boom. Test boom by placing it in the fish tank filled with the 10 gallons of water and 16 ounces of motor oil. Leave for 24 hours. Reweigh boom and remeasure water and oil amounts. Record data and repeat two more times. Results Results: My boom abosrbed nearly 100% percent of the oil and only a small percentage of water. Conclusions/Discussion Conclusion: This type of boom could serve as an environmentally friendly replacement to chemcial sorbants in fighting oil spills in the ocean.

Competition history

• CSEF 2011 Environmental Engineering (Junior Division Only) · Entry J1017

Resources

• CSEF project summary ↗

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