Maritime oil spills can pose serious hazards to marine life and coastal shorelines. The goal of this project is to develop biodegradable surfactants for use in "chemical herding" as an effective oil spill response. In this method of containment, surfactants are sprayed aerially into uncontaminated water immediately outside the spill. The surfactants lower the air-water surface tension, which causes the floating oil layer to retract and thicken to the point that it can be removed by burning or mechanical skimming. The investigators will synthesize surfactant herders that are easily degraded and conduct experiments to evaluate their performance in laboratory simulations of chemical herding.
Surfactants will be synthesized using naturally occurring terpenoids with a unique single carbon branch repeating structure as the hydrophobic tail and a polar head group attached with an ester group that hydrolyzes after the herding action. The air/water surface tension reduction by the herder will be measured. An alternative strategy in which the surfactant is used to lower the oil/water interfacial tension, leading to retraction of the oil layer, will also be investigated. The herding capabilities of the surfactants will be demonstrated in laboratory experiments and compared with the performance of commercially available surfactants currently in use.
