Using sea water for cleaning oil from seabird feathers

Abstract

Summary1. During an oil spill, marine wildlife, particularly birds, are at risk of external contamination, affecting insulation, waterproofing and consequently survival. Decontamination of oiled wildlife usually involves a succession of washes and rinses with warm, freshwater and detergent. However, accessibility of large quantities of freshwater needed for cleaning oiled wildlife can be limited. 2. To assess the efficacy of sea water as an alternative, we used 80 seabird feathers, 40 saturated with heavy fuel oil and 40 unoiled feathers as controls, then washed and rinsed them using either freshwater or sea water, or a combination of both. 3. Cleanliness and water repellency were assessed visually, and a barbule amalgamation index (BAI) was calculated to evaluate feather microstructure. Particulate residue was assessed using scanning electron microscopy. 4. Results indicate that for oiled feathers, a sea water wash/rinse produced clean, low BAI/unclumped feathers with minimal particulate residue. Sea water cleaning trials should now be undertaken on live birds to understand links with sea water use and waterproofing. 5. The method described has world-wide application for oiled wildlife response activities and could be readily modified for the cleaning of other taxa such as mammals.

Co-gasification of woody biomass and chicken manure: Syngas production, biochar reutilization, and cost-benefit analysis

“…The AS concentration of the filtrate was measured by LC-MS/MS. Meanwhile, to study the effect of water hardness, 10mg of biochar was suspended in 5ml of 100ppb AS in water of different total hardness (as CaCO 3 mg/L): DI water (0 mg/L), Singapore tap water (66 mg/L on average [34]), mixture of DI and tap water in 1:1 ratio (~33 mg/L), seawater (~6630 mg/L [35]), and 10× diluted seawater (~663 mg/L). Similar to the above, the suspension was filtered after adsorption and the AS concentration of the filtrate was measured by LC-MS/MS.…”