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SPILL-SORB Case History 1
Construction Surprise at the Southern Sun Hotel, Cape Town
In January of 1996, routine
construction of the new Southern Sun Hotel in Cape Town, South Africa unexpectedly became
a proving ground of the effectiveness of Spill-Sorb.
While drilling for 30 metre deep concrete piles, a major
pocket of Bunker Oil was struck, flooding the area. The site had previously been a tank
farm, and the oil likely came from a long-forgotten pipeline fracture.
As the tide rose, the mixture had to be pumped out to enable concrete production to
continue. Spill-Sorb was used as the filtration media;
only clean water. as shown on the next page, reached the harbour.
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The photograph on the left shows one of the 1 x 30 metre
deep piles that were sunk as foundations for the new hotel. Notice the thick, black
floating oil. |
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To clean the mixture of Bunker Oil and sea water, three
tanks were coupled together with a manifold. A six inch pump moved the polluted water to
the manifold. When the Spill-Sorb in a tank became saturated, the flow was diverted to the
next tank. The spent Spill-Sorb was then removed for disposal as fresh Spill-Sorb was
added, thus allowing continuous cleanup operations. |
Spill-Sorb Page 18
SPILL-SORB Case History 1 continued
Only Clean Water Now Spills into the Cape Town Foreshore
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Spill-Sorb completely removed all the Bunker Oil from the
sea water and oil mix encountered during the construction of the Southern Sun Hotel. Here
water, cleaned by being filtered and the hydrocarbons being totally encapsulated by the
Spill-Sorb, runs over the harbour wall in Cape Town. The 4000 mm Spill-Sorb filled boom
around the filters, as seen in the photograph, acts as a barrier in the event that any oil
escaped while a tank was being recharged with Spill-Sorb. |
The Result: For a nominal cost, the contracting engineers managed to clean the oil waste
"on site" using Spill-Sorb as the encapsulating medium. An outstanding saving
was being able to allow the now cleaned sea water to run back into the ocean. The
oil-filled Spill-Sorb was economically removed to a land fill near by, with no threat of
it ever leaching the encapsulated Bunker Oil. |
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