THE EFFECTIVENESS OF DISPERSANTS: VARIATION WITH ENERGY

Abstract

ABSTRACT A study of the relationship of dispersant effectiveness and mixing energy was performed. Energy was varied by changing the rotational speed of a specially designed apparatus. The effects of dispersant type and oil type were also measured. The stability of the resulting emulsions was gauged by measuring the amount of oil that remained in the water column over time. The findings are that each oil-dispersant combination shows a unique threshold or onset of dispersion. The effectiveness goes up linearly with energy, expressed as flask rotational speed. Natural dispersion was also measured and shows behavior similar to that of chemical dispersion, except that the thresholds occur at a higher energy and effectiveness rises more slowly with increasing energy. Effectiveness (defined as the percentage of oil in the water column) rises rapidly to 80 to 90 percent with increasing energy for light oils treated with chemical dispersants. Heavier oils will disperse, but to lesser effectiveness values.