The stability of crude oil droplets formed by adding chemical dispersants can be considerably enhanced by the use of the biopolymer, hydrophobically modified chitosan. Turbidimetric analyses show that emulsions of crude oil in saline water prepared using a combination of the biopolymer and the well-studied chemical dispersant (Corexit 9500A) remain stable for extended periods in comparison to e...

Effectiveness of oil spill dispersants containing lecithin/Tween 80 (L/T) blends in ethanol was measured as a function of L:T ratio, surfactant:solvent ratio, solvent composition, and dispersant:oil ratio (DOR) using baffled flask dispersion effectiveness tests. Optimal L:T ratios are between 60:40 and 80:20 (w/w); at higher L:T ratios, effectiveness is limited by high interfacial tension, whil...

Most of the studies of microbial processes in response to the Deepwater Horizon oil spill focused on the deep water plume, and not on the surface communities. The effects of the crude oil and the application of dispersants on the coastal microbial food web in the northern Gulf of Mexico have not been well characterized even though these regions support much of the fisheries production in the Gu...

the degradation of crude oil under a no-control and dispersant-control setting was evaluated using loss of biological activity test, microbial population growth and measurements of optical transmittance of test media. comparison of the toxicity of crude oil under the no-control setting to crude oil-dispersant mixture revealed that the mixture was about 2 times more toxic than the crude oil unde...

Toxicity and temporal changes in toxicity of freshwater-marsh-microcosms containing South Louisiana Crude (SLC) or diesel fuel and treated with a cleaner or dispersant, were investigated using Chironomus tentans, Daphnia pulex, and Oryzias latipes. Bioassays used microcosm water (for D. pulex and O. latipes) or soil slurry (for C. tentans) taken 1,7, 31, and 186 days after treatment. SLC was le...

one of the most chemical methods for controlling of oil spills is use of dispersants, which arewidely being used worldwide. in this research, comparison of acute toxicity of crude oil of the persian gulf-khark area (co), iranian naftroob crude oil dispersant (ind), radiagreen osd dispersant crude oil (rd), themixture of crude oil and iranian naftroob dispersant ( co-ind) and crude oil with radi...

To better understand the impact of the Deepwater Horizon (DWH) incident on commercially and ecologically important pelagic fish species, a mahi-mahi spawning program was developed to assess the effect of embryonic exposure to DWH crude oil with particular emphasis on the effects of weathering and dispersant on the magnitude of toxicity. Acute lethality (96 h LC50) ranged from 45.8 (28.4-63.1) μ...

The U.S. National Research Council (NRC) Committee on Understanding Oil Spill Dispersants: Efficacy and Effects (2005) identified two factors that require further investigation in chemical oil dispersant efficacy studies: 1) quantification of mixing energy at sea as energy dissipation rate and 2) dispersed particle size distribution. To fully evaluate the significance of these factors, a wave t...

The aim of this study was to examine the acute toxicity of five oil spill chemical dispersants on the ecologically and economically important coastal and estuarine species, blue crab Callinectes sapidus. Static, non-renewal 48 h acute toxicity tests were performed on stage-II blue crab zoea. The median lethal concentration (LC50) was calculated for each dispersant at 24 h and 48 h using nominal...