Oil Spill Remediation Using Magnetic Particles: An Experiment in Environmental Technology

Abstract

A simple experiment is described in which the potential of commercially available steel pellets coated with polyethylene (PE) or poly(vinylchloride) (PVC) to remediate an oil spill is demonstrated. Polymer-coated particles are weighed, immersed in oil, magnetically harvested and the remaining oil is weighed in order to enable students to quantitatively investigate the adsorption process. The possibility of recycling the beads and reclaiming the oil is also demonstrated.