What Are Sorbents For Oil Spills?

Oil spills can be a significant environmental disaster, and the cleanup process can be long and difficult. Especially when crude oil leaks into the ocean, lakes, rivers, or wetlands. Which is not to say that spills on land are less harmful. Any oil spill can cause serious damage to the ecosystem and human health.

One common method of dealing with oil spills is sorbent products. They are widely used for spill response, to clean up and recover oil, in all types of industries. Such as mining, environmental remediation, and industrial waste management.

But what are oil sorbents, what are they made from, and how do they work? In this blog post, we’ll answer those questions and more. We’ll also explore some of the different types of sorbents that are available on the market. So if you’re looking for information about sorbents for oil spills, read on!

Sorbents are materials that absorb, adsorb, or, both (a combined process known as sorption). Adsorption and absorption mean quite different things. Therefore, it’s helpful to understand their distinction:

Absorption is the process of a substance soaking into an absorbent material. Similar to the capillary action of a straw, sucking up water. When an absorbent soaks in oil, it swells up in size by at least 70 percent.

Adsorption refers to individual molecules, atoms or ions gathering on surface of an adsorbent material. Much like dust particles sitting on a glass table top. An adsorbent collects a coating of oil on its surface, without swelling more than 50 percent.

There are also two other characteristics to know about, that are important to oil sorbents:

Oleophilic: meaning to attract oil.

Hydrophobic: meaning to repel water.

Combined, all these properties create effective sorbents for spill cleanup. Particularly for oil spills in bodies of water. By supporting oil recovery from the water’s surface with vacuum or skimmer equipment.