Oil removal from voluminous streams is difficult. Research is being carried out to develop new bioremediation technologies to speed up the degradation process for the oil emulsions and dispersions. The time required for oil removal with today's technologies is unacceptably long, posing an environmental disaster when an accidental oil spill occurs. A research project to investigate the feasibility for the application of the improved air-sparged hydrocyclone (ASH) flotation technology for the recovery and separation of oil from spills and waste water is being investigated. The ASH technology, especially developed for the fast and efficient flotation separation of fine particles, is found to be applicable in many fields. It combines the advantages from both conventional hydrocyclones and froth flotation into a single piece of equipment and provides a unique opportunity for the rapid separation of dispersed oil from significantly large waste water streams with a proven processing capacity of about 100-600 times more than that offered by any other flotation equipment.The potential commercial application as described by the awardee: APT is a research and development company and has demonstrated ability to commercialize many technologies either funded by government agencies or private sector. If this Phase I SBIR program is proven successful, a more detailed and large-scale NSF/industry collaboration program for both fundamental study and field testing will be proposed in Phase II.
