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The request of ships and devices which are able for remove oil and polluting spills from the sea is more and more increasing in the recent years. These systems may remain unused for years and, at same time, need frequent and very expensive maintenance.
Their availability requires a transferring to the incident place which can be made also after many hours or days after the oil spilling.
The new idea is to design a light and flexible system which can be docked directly on the ships or in small boats which can lay down and contain the oil slick.
By so doing the pollution control could be more effective and the environmental damage could be better controlled in very short time.
The FLOC (FLexible Oil Collector protected by international patent application) has been studied and developed by Jonathan Project, in partnership with Innovation Factory – the business incubator of Area Science Park – and the Hydrodynamic Laboratories of the University of Trieste.
It consist in a floating funnel-shaped collector having an I/O balanced flow which conveys the free surface of the mixture of water and hydrocarbons for the separation and then collects the pollution in tanks. By so doing the percentage of hydrocarbons recovery is higher in comparison with the traditional oil skimmers.
The availability of a such system, which could be used as a standard equipment, could allow fast and timely rescue. A small layout of the device can be used for cleaning maintenance of stretches of water in ports and docks.