The request for ships and devices able to collect oil and polluting spills from the sea has been more and more increasing in recent years. These systems may remain unused for years and, at the same time, need frequent and very expensive maintenance. Their availability requires transferring them to the site of the incident, which may be reached many hours or days after the oil spill has occurred. The new idea is to design a light and flexible system that can be docked directly on the ships or in small boats capable of laying down and containing 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 the international patent application) has been studied and developed by Jonathan Project, in partnership with Innovation Factory of Area Science Park and the Hydrodynamic Laboratories of the University of Trieste. It consists in a floating funnel-shaped collector with an I/O balanced flow that conveys the free surface of the mixture of water and hydrocarbons for their separation and their collection into pollution tanks. By so doing, the percentage of hydrocarbon recovery is higher in comparison with traditional oil skimmers. The availability of a such system could be used as standard equipment, thus allowing fast and timely rescue. A small layout of the device can be used for cleaning maintenance of stretches of water in ports and docks.
