This report is a review of the literature on oil spill dispersants published from 2011 to June 2014. The report identifies and focuses on recent advances in dispersant effectiveness, toxicity, and biodegradation. Other topics such as behavior and fate are also covered.
Oil that has undergone biodegradation or photooxidation, contains oxygenated compounds. These compounds cannot be analysed by standard extraction and gas-chromatographic methods. Conventional methods do not analyse for polar compounds and would not count them in the analytical results.
Surface washing agents or beach cleaners or shoreline cleaning agents, are formulations containing surfactants and are designed to remove oil from surfaces such as shorelines. The desired mechanism is that of detergency rather than dispersion. These agents generally have properties different from dispersants and are of typically lower aquatic toxicity, do not disperse oil except at higher mixing energies and are applied quite differently than dispersants. Surface washing agents are typically applied on oil stranded on beaches during low-tide phases and then the oil is removed using low-pressure water and directed toward an oil recovery area. This version of the report reviews the old work and updates the topic until 2013.
This paper is a review and update of oil spill solidifiers and summarizes data on solidifier effectiveness, composition, and application.