To restore the marine environments contaminated by oil spills to an acceptable state, sediments are commonly washed with seawater, and surfactants added into the aqueous solution to increase the oil recovery. However, the resulting mixture may release toxic break-down products, and the surfactants may themselves pose an environmental risk to marine species. In this work we investigated for the first time the addition of chitosan nanoparticles to the washing solution as an alternative and greener method to ensure the cleanup of contaminated sediments.

Results

showed 65.1±6.4% of average removal from sand and seafloor sediments artificially contaminated at 4 wt % with crude oils displaying different specific gravity. These results were comparable to those obtained with commercial surfactant mixtures containing non-ionic and anionic surfactant (67.8±5.2% removal). Moreover it was possible to recover the crude oil from the washing solution thanks to the reversible demulsification induced by the addition of CO₂.

中文翻译：

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壳聚糖聚集体作为Pickering乳化剂修复海洋沉积物的评价

为了将溢油污染的海洋环境恢复到可接受的状态，通常用海水洗涤沉积物，并在水溶液中添加表面活性剂以提高采油量。但是，所得混合物可能释放出有毒的分解产物，并且表面活性剂本身可能对海洋物种构成环境风险。在这项工作中，我们首次研究了将壳聚糖纳米粒子添加到洗涤液中的方法，以作为另一种更环保的方法来确保清除污染的沉积物。

结果

结果表明，在4 wt％的人工比重不同的原油中，沙和海底沉积物的平均去除率为65.1±6.4％。这些结果与使用包含非离子和阴离子表面活性剂的商业表面活性剂混合物（去除率67.8±5.2％）获得的结果相当。此外，由于加入CO ₂引起的可逆的破乳作用，可以从洗涤液中回收原油。