EXPERIMENTAL STUDY ON OIL/WATER SEPARATING SYSTEM

In the Nahotokha oil spill, which occurred in the Japan Sea in the winter of 1997, recovery operations using buckets hauled up by crane barges and grab dredgers showed good results. It was thought that this method would be more useful than other oil recovery methods for the recovery of high viscosity oil because crane barges and grab dredgers can operate even in rough sea, and crane buckets have proven to be effective for the recovery of oil of high viscosity. However, one drawback of this method is that a huge volume of water is collected together with the oil. A large storage pit and an efficient method for treating the polluted water are therefore needed. Thus, for effective utilization of the bucket recovery method, a method for separating oil and water and increasing the oil/water ratio is needed. Experiments were conducted in the present study to find an effective method for separating oil from seawater recovered using buckets in a low-temperature such as the Okhotsk Sea in winter.