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Chemical Surface Washing Agents for Oil Spills: Update State-of-the-Art on Mechanisms of Action and Evaluation of Two Laboratory Effectiveness Tests.
Citation:
Clayton, Jr, J. R., S. Tsang, V. Frank, P. Marsden, AND N. Chau. Chemical Surface Washing Agents for Oil Spills: Update State-of-the-Art on Mechanisms of Action and Evaluation of Two Laboratory Effectiveness Tests. . U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Washington, DC, EPA/600/SR-93/113, 1993.
Impact/Purpose:
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Description:
Chemical surface washing agents are formulations designed to help release stranded oil from shoreline substrates.The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), in response to the Oil Pollution Act of 1990, Initiated study of these cleaning agents. The project summarized here had two primary objectives and generated two reports. The first, a state-of-the-art (SOTA) report, updated information on the cleaning agents, their mode of action, and variables affecting their cleaning performance in the field and in the laboratory. A number of laboratory tests for estimating cleaning performance were also discussed. EPA's second report presented a detailed evaluation of two laboratory testing procedures for estimating the effectiveness of the cleaning agents. These were the Inclined Trough Test and a new Swirling Coupon Test. Two substrates (stainless steel and porcelain tile) were evaluated for each procedure. The two procedures were evaluated for the precision of their results in estimating cleaning performance, costs associated with conducting a given procedure, and the ease of conducting that procedure (e.g., number of tests performed in 8 hr, skill level required of an operator, and overall complexity of the procedure). The precision of results for cleaning performance were 4% to 7% (standard devia- tion about the mean) for the Inclined Trough Test and 10% to 12% for the Swirling Coupon Test. Costs to perform a procedure also favored the In- clined Trough Test. The number of tests performed in 8 hr, the skill level of an operator, and the overall complexity of a procedure were similar for both tests.