10 February 2021, the MOIG Director participated; via electronic conferencing platform; to webinar titled “Spill Knowledge Base Skimmers” presented by Mark Orr; Executive Director of UK & Ireland Spill Association Ltd; Marc van der Zwan; Oil & Chemical Pollution Expert from Zwanny Ltd and Gareth McCorkill; Business Development Executive from Ambipar Response. This webinar was supported by OAMPS.
Mark Orr started by introducing the knowledge base and UK & Ireland Spill Association vision for 2021 that consists in sharing their member’s world leading knowledge and enables them to be found, accessed and shared and as results enable knowledge to be increased. He underlined that UK & Ireland Spill Association is planning to organize 10 marine knowledge base webinars in 2021. He also presented an overview on the knowledge base topics and dates of the next webinars scheduled to occur during the first semester 2021; which are as follows:
18 February 2021 : Marine Booms, types available, where they should be used and how to use them” that will be presented by Paul Rayner-Vikoma and Mark Shephred-NRC
10 March 2021 : Marine Plastic Pollution what is currently being done and by whom that will be presented by UKEirSpill
24 March 2021 : Absorbents : What they are, how to use them that will be presented by Mark Carlton-Darcy and Responder-TBC
14 April 2021 : Marine Dispersants : What is available, where and how to deploy them that will be presented by Ayles Fernie-OSRL
22 April 2021: Inland Spill Day
19 May 2021 : Temporary Storage Tanks for use in spill response
Marc van der Zwan began by defining the skimmer; as a mechanical product that is used in marine or industrial applications to collect hydrocarbons, other oils or even duckweed. He explained that skimmers can operate with ship hydraulic and diesel hydraulic power pack, adding that there are a number of different powers such as pneumatic, electrical and pump power/vacuum trucks. He introduced the marine and industrial skimmers by providing tangible illustrations of their practical applications related to locations and types of oils. He pointed that marine skimmers can be used in nearshore, beach, port, marina locations, offshore and artic/ice conditions. He underlined that industrial skimmers can be used in industrial application canal, river, stream, ditch and lake.
Marc van der Zwan presented a wide range of Lamor marine skimmers such as Minimax 25, Manta Ray, Foilex Micro weir, Rock cleaner, Marine 50 m3/hrs, Brush chain LFF 100, large weir 50 m3/hrs, Larger 50 m3 + mop skimmer, Larger 50 m3 + bucket skimmer. For the industrial skimmers, he presented the oleophilic, Markleen MS 10, MN 12, mop type, weir skimmer for industry, sunctions and belt skimmers.
In the same context, Gareth McCorkill delivered a presentation titled “Things to think about when choosing a skimmer”. He introduced the different types of skimmers and their applications such as the oleophilic, weir, mechanical and vacuum skimmers. He highlighted that the vacuum skimmers are very good for the shoreline. He also showed a diagram representing the oil viscosity as a function of the optimum recovery efficiency, which indicates that for oils having low viscosities; the weir and oleophilic a skimmers offer a high recovery rate of oil; exceeding 70 %.
In addition, Gareth McCorkill talked about skimmer snags highlighting their advantages, especially in terms of ease of set up and use, lifting, robustness and wipe-clean. He concluded by Case Study – Exploration related to whilst testing a slug of oil entered the marine environment, the recovery by wax of fox tail and natural sorbents-floating sea grass.