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Abanaki's Fuzzy2 material is helping to clean up oil spilled from the recent Gulf of Mexico explosion. |
CLEVELAND – The Fuzzy2 material from Abanaki Corporation is being put to work off the coast of Louisiana on a disk skimmer cleaning up oil from the Gulf of Mexico oil spill disaster.
The disk skimmer is under contract to a spill responder and is operated from one of the scores of ships now deployed to skim oil in the Gulf of Mexico. The leak is estimated to gush 5,000 barrels of oil each day following the explosion and sinking of an oil rig that killed 11 workers April 21.
A disk skimmer uses a rotating disk to remove oil from water. Oleophilic (oil attracting) material collects oil as the disk passes through the water, and wiper blades scrape off the oil for collection. In this application, Abanaki's Fuzzy2 material is attached to the surface of 56 30-inch diameter skimming disks on a floating skimmer made by CRUCIAL Inc. of Gretna, Louisiana. Outfitted with Fuzzy2, the CRUCIAL ORD Disc Skimmer can remove up to 385 gallons of oil per minute from the water's surface, more than three times its usual capacity.
