Oil spills, solvents and hazardous materials are an ongoing problem that has serious environmental consequences, including damage to oceans, beaches, rivers and streams, as well as the detrimental effects on the health of wildlife and humans The need for oil and chemicals has created a steady growth in the chemical industry, including transport and manufacture of these compounds, resulting in increasing environmental problems associated with spills, accidents and improper disposal.
The documents listed below describe different solutions to remedy the problems associated with oil spill or other liquid contaminants from soil and water.
Such is the case of U.S. Pat. No. 7,041,221 (B2) patent. which claims a method comprising the use of ground glass to remove oil from the surfaces containing it, which comprises the step of applying the said glass to the surface of the oil contained in it said glass is formed by the process (a) crushing glass using an impact crusher, hammer mill, cone crusher or roll crusher, (b) select crushed glass using at least one mesh, and (c) drying the crushed glass whereby the amount of oil is reduced from the surface.
Another example is described in the international application WO2009001676. It refers to the use of magnetism by a magnetic for treating water contaminated with oil occurs in oil production and reuse the same separator. The magnetic separation system subjected to flocculation by a flocculation magnetic separator to thereby obtain a preliminary purified water free of oil pollution components contained in the oil-contaminated water.
Additional prior art it is known methods involving the use of microorganisms to recover oil. The U.S. Pat. No. 8,357,526 (B2) and US 20-7776795 (B2) patents relate to the isolation and identification of Pseudomonas strains unique stutzen that can grow on crude oil denitrification conditions and which are useful in oil recovery.
Moreover, for many years they were used absorbent materials in cleaning oil and hazardous materials industry. absorbent clay materials are currently the material of choice for the absorption or recovery of oil or other hazardous chemicals in soil. A wide variety of treated natural fibers have been used as adsorbents hazardous materials. These have included tree bark, peat, wood fiber, kenaf core, puffed cereals, and a variety of other cellulosic materials. Each of these types of fibers has drawbacks that have prevented them from becoming the material of choice for oil and chemical spills on land or in water.
The main disadvantage of most of these fiber types is that they are naturally hydrophytes and, therefore, tend to absorb large amounts of water The water absorption increases the weight of these materials and may decrease healthily their ability to absorb oil or hazardous chemical that these materials are intended to recover.
In industrial applications, these materials have the disadvantages of low absorption capacity and a high density that make both heavy and difficult to transport them. In addition, the abrasiveness and friability of these products can lead to increased wear of the nearby industrial machinery. Some of these adsorbents are not biodegradable and. therefore, pose an additional environmental problem, as they must be eliminated in the limited space available in landfills.
The international patent application WO2011036508 A1 describes a process for recovering hydrocarbons, to decontaminate water and soil, especially aimed at maintaining clean environment, and allowing the industry generally achieve adequate waste management and as methods for water treatment, quick, cost-effective, efficient manner unlike known technologies. However, in this application not using a mixture of absorbent fibers powder for this purpose is described.
Therefore, a need exists for an efficient naturally absorbent material is environmentally friendly and overcomes the drawbacks of known technologies in the prior art.