NEW TECHNOLOGY FOR ELIMINATING OIL STAINS ON YOUR PROPERTY

Around the house you aren't going to run into fuel spills in the millions of gallons like the Valdez oil spill. But a new retail product that was used to clean up the Valdez spill is available by the quart to homeowners, and can give new life to oil-stained driveways, concrete, garages, and even soil.That's big news. An oil stain on the driveway can not only lower your property's value, but it can also be tracked into your home and damage your floors and carpets. And if you keep tools in your garage such as weed trimmers and lawnmowers, they can drip oil or fuel and leave stains and foul petrol odors in your garage.It's been difficult to eliminate oil spills until recently. The rags and sand that we endlessly dump on spills don’t actually eliminate the hydrocarbon contamination. In fact, they become hazmats that you shouldn’t throw away casually (if you're going to follow your local environmental regulations). Many people just wait for spills they cause to seep into the ground or evaporate. While you're looking for the easiest and best solution for all these little spills, consider bioremediation: It's a natural process at oil spill sites where bacteria break down fuels into harmless by-products like water. There are products available now that dramatically accelerate this process. While bioremediation is EPA-approved, oil-spill tested, and a green method for actually breaking down hydrocarbons, it has only recently become available on the retail market.There are basically two approaches to bioremediation. One method, offered by OilGoneEasy.com, uses super nutrients to attract microbes to the spill which break down oil into water. The other method, typified by a product such as Exima, involves factory-made bacteria that you pour right onto the spill. Even a product like Pour-n-Restore requires clean up and needs to be disposed of because it's just an absorbing agent... and yep, you're back at dealing with how to dispose of petrochemical waste which is a hazmat.
Oil Gone Easy S-200 took about a week to work in our tests and completely removed the oil stain. We were somewhat apprehensive about using Exima which introduced foreign bacteria to our spill site. We found that Oil Gone Easy S-200 was more effective because it recruited local bacteria rather than introducing alien microorganisms to the contaminated area. Oil Gone Easy S-200 liquid encapsulated the fuel spill immediately, preventing it from evaporating (or even washing away in rain) or seeping further into the ground. It also immediately eliminated the petrochemical odor. Oil Gone Easy S-200 biodegraded quickly after completely removing the oil spot. Exima did not completely eliminate the oil stain and was a far more costly method ounce for ounce vs. Oil Gone Easy S-200Oil Gone Easy S-200 makes it easy to follow through on cleaning up those little oil spills and stains we've been ignoring for too long. You can check out the company at www.OilGoneEasy.com

Nanotubes and Bioremediation of Petrochemicals

Researchers at the University of Lancaster, United Kingdom, have shown that carbon nanotubes can pierce plant root cells, allowing other pollutants to easily infiltrate the cellular structure of plants. The researchers, Edward Wild and Kevin Jones, wanted to better understand the fate and interaction of nanoscale materials in the natural environment, due to the growth in production of these materials. Wild says "[T]here are also suggestions that nanomaterials might be useful in bioremediation, whether that's cleaning up groundwater or removing pollutants from contaminated sites, so we were interested to see what interactions there would be [with typical contaminants]." Wild and Jones used a special technique that allowed them to see exactly where molecules end up within the cellular structure of plants, bacteria, or fungi. The team examined nanoparticles of titanium dioxide, cerium dioxide, and multiwall carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs), and found that the nanotubes pierced the cells, significantly accelerating the uptake, by the plant, of phenanthrene, a typical atmospheric pollutant arising from the burning of fossil fuels. The acceleration appeared to be caused by the nanotubes piercing the cells and acting as pipes, allowing the phenanthrene to infiltrate much more rapidly than it could have done otherwise. Jamie Lead, a specialist in environmental nanoscience from the University of Birmingham, UK, said "[T]his kind of 'Trojan horse' scenario has been talked about a lot, but it's nice to have confirmation and data to show that it is the case."

Numerous bioremediation products are currently being used globally to clean up petrochemical contamination. Notably, Oil Gone Easy in the United States has launched the first retail product utilizing this technilogy for home and marine use.