TERI offers to clean up Mumbai slick with its magic weapon
With its new tech. Oilzapper, it can clean up the spill in matter of weeks
The Economic Times, Mumbai, 12 August 2010
The oil spill around Mumbai can be cleaned up in a matter of weeks, if the government allows the Delhi-based The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI) to take a shot at it. Scientists from the organisation on Wednesday wrote to the Maharashtra Pollution Control Board and the state government, asking to be allowed to use their ‘magic weapon’ to clean up the slick - a technique called Oilzapper. “We are waiting to hear from the government, but if given a go ahead, we can clean up the shore, and also treat the oil in the water in weeks,” says Dr Banwari Lal, Director, TERI.
The scientific name for the process is bioremediation, which uses a “cocktail of bacteria”, as Dr Lal puts it, to eat and digest the oil in a spill. It releases carbon dioxide and neutralises (or degrades) the oil into something much less harmful. The bacteria, or microorganisms to be used, can be cultured quite easily in a lab. These die shortly after, becoming food for plankton or small fish themselves. TERI has been working on an oilzapper for spills on land for almost 10 years. With marine spills on the rise everywhere in the world - like the BP accident in the Gulf of Mexico, and now Mumbai - researchers at TERI tied up with Adelaide University, Australia, last year to come up with an oilzapper for the sea. After testing this in the waters around Australia, they are ready to use it in Mumbai.
With approximately 879 metric tonnes (MT) of oil having spread over as much as 20 sq km of coastline and much of the seawater around the ship, MSCChitra, TERI scientists say they would use two different processes. “The slick that has settled on the beaches can be treated quite easily, with local bio-remediation sites,” says Dr Lal. Large pits, lined with high-density polythene sheets would be dug, and sand contaminated by the slick would be scooped from the beaches and dumped in these pits and sprinkled with large amounts of bacteria (which, in their crystallized form, resembles powder). “In less than two months, the oil will be completely digested by the microbes, leaving clean sand,” says Dr Lal. An estimated 2,000 MT of the dirty, sand-oil mix would require only 10 tonnes of the bacteria powder. TERI produces about two tones a day, so supply would not be a problem.
A slightly different cocktail of microbes would be required to treat seawater, says another representative of TERI. In fact, the marine zapper works even better. Able to withstand a salinity of up to 7-8% (the Arabian sea has only 2.5-3% salinity), it breaks down oil compounds much faster. For approximately 800 MT of oil in the water, scientists would need to enclose the contaminated area and sprinkle the microbes. “The seawater can become clean again in a month,” estimates Dr Lal. He can say so quite confidently, having tested the marine oilzapper in Paradip during the 2009 spill. TERI now plans to apply for a patent for its marine zapper, in association with the department of biotechnology which has funded the research. The Indian patent for the terrestrial zapper came through some years ago.
“In situations like this, bio-remediation is the only way to go,” says Prof R Gyanaprasuna, head of the department of microbiology at Gitam University, Vishakhapatnam, which has been doing extensive research on the subject. “And its not just oil spills. As the number of pollutants increase all around us, we will need more and newer combinations of neutralising elements and microbes. Lots of laboratories across the country are already working on this, but not many have gone public yet, like TERI.”