Journal of Hazardous Materials, Vol.366, 124-129, 2019
Remediation of oil spill-contaminated sands by chemical-free microbubbles generated in tap and saline water
Oil spill-contaminated sands caused by marine oil spillage could severely impact aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems. In this work, self-collapsing microbubbles (MBs)-based method was explored as a chemical free approach for remediation of oil spill-contaminated sands. Tap water and saline water with 32 g/L of sodium chloride were employed as the media to generate MBs. Results showed that almost all oils were removed from the oil spill-contaminated sands after the 40-min treatment with MBs generated in tap water. The oil removal efficiency of MBs in saline water was slightly lower than that in tap water, while more than 90% of oil removal efficiency was still achieved after the 40-min treatment. The analyses by FTIR and UV spectra further confirmed the oil removal from oil spill-contaminated sands by MBs. Consequently, self-collapsing MBs showed a great potential as an environmentally friendly technology for high-efficiency remediation of oil spill-contaminated sands.