Employees of the Higher School of Technology and Energy of the St. Petersburg State University of Industrial Technology and Design have created a drug that decomposes petroleum products, even at low temperatures. This will allow water and soil to be cleaned of oil pollution, the press service of the RF Ministry of Education and Science said.
The development turned out to be a continuation of research on the creation of mineral fertilizers of prolonged action based on phosphate glasses, their unique properties allowed scientists to create a technology for obtaining porous granules that became a carrier of a biological product capable of purifying water and soil from oil pollution.
“Cells of microorganisms-oil destructors are immobilized on porous glass-phosphate granules, which decompose hydrocarbons and cleanse soil or water from oil pollution,” explained Aleksey Khlynovsky, associate professor of the university.
According to him, after the decomposition of oil products, microorganisms die off, becoming “a link in the food chain for the aboriginal microflora.”
Tests of the drug have confirmed that the number of cells per unit volume of new forms is 10-15 times higher than that of those known on the market, which made it possible to reduce consumption rates during use. The biological product also works effectively in soil and water, and is ready to use without any preparation.
It is noted that the ease of use of the drug will not require the provision of the training process by highly qualified personnel.
“The biological product showed excellent results in the decomposition of oil products in low temperatures when cleaning a reservoir contaminated with aviation fuel at the Savvatiya facility in the Arkhangelsk region: the cleaning efficiency reached 99.2% after 20 days,” the Ministry of Education and Science said.
The tests were also carried out on the territory of Surgutneftegaz and the Irkutsk Oil Company, in Kronstadt.
Another development of SPbGUPTD scientists in the field of cleaning territories from oil is a unique sorbent that is designed to eliminate emergency spills of oil and oil products on water, soil, asphalt, concrete and other hard coatings. It binds hydrocarbons within 30 seconds, which helps to prevent environmental disaster in places of oil spills.