BACKGROUND The aim of the study was to organise an assessment of the physical strains and environmental exposure to hydrocarbon derivatives in persons involved in shoreline clean-up of heavy oil products, in order to investigate the dangers of oil spill clean-up. MATERIAL AND METHODS Forty-three healthy volunteers wearing protective equipment cleaning up an artificial shoreline underwent card...

Geological carbon storage represents a substantial challenge for the subsurface geosciences. Knowledge of the subsurface can be captured in a quantitative form using computational methods developed within petroleum production. However, to provide good estimates of the likely outcomes over thousands of years, traditional 3D simulation methods should be combined with other techniques developed sp...

Chemical oil dispersants are proprietary mixtures of surfactants and solvents which are directly applied to a spill in order to reduce the natural attractive forces of the oil. When oil treated with dispersants is exposed to mixing energy, typically from wind and wave action, it is broken up into small droplets which may then become entrained in the water column (Li et al., 2009a; Li et al., 20...

Algae are predicted to play an important role in tomorrow’s bioeconomy. The technical goal of the project was to develop enhanced algal cultivation processes utilising waste flows and to increase the overall material and energy efficiency of algal processing for biodiesel and biogas production. The project produced new knowledge on the boundary conditions for cost efficient algal cultivation an...

INTRODUCTION Microalgae comprise a vast group of photosynthetic, auto/heterotrophic organism which has an extraordinary potential for cultivation as energy crops. These microscopic algae use photosynthetic process similar to that of higher-developed plants. They are veritable miniature biochemical factories, capable of regulating carbon dioxide (CO ), just like terrestrial plants [1]. In additi...

Petroleum hydrocarbons are important energy resources. However, petroleum is also a major pollutant of the environment. Contamination by oil and oil products has caused serious harm, and increasing attention has been paid to the development and implementation of innovative technologies for the removal of these contaminants. Biosurfactants have been extensively used in the remediation of water a...

Continued use of petroleum sourced fuels is now widely recognized as unsustainable because of depleting supplies and the contribution of these fuels to the accumulation of carbon dioxide in the environment. Renewable, carbon neutral, transport fuels are necessary for environmental and economic sustainability. Biodiesel derived from oil crops is a potential renewable and carbon neutral alternati...

This paper describes analysis of environmental pollutants at depth without bringing sample to the surface. It is based on an improved 3-stage Peltier freeze trap, which efficiently pre-concentrates volatile coal tar and petroleum hydrocarbons, and an integrated system for detecting pollutants on-line, in real-time by photoionization detection and quantitation by gas chromatography/mass spectrom...

Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAH) are byproducts of combustion and are ubiquitous in the urban environment. They are also present in industrial chemical wastes, such as coal tar, petroleum refinery sludges, waste oils and fuels, and wood-treating residues. Thus, PAHs are chemicals of concern at many waste sites. Risk assessment methods will yield riskbased cleanup levels for PAHs that rang...