Marine Oil Pollution Research Articles

A baroduric immobilized composite material promoting remediation of oil-polluted sediment at typical deep-sea condition: The performances and potential mechanisms

Contriving immobilized bioreagent is of great significance to enhance bioremediation of marine oil pollution. However, there remains a notable scarcity of correlational study conducted at deep sea condition. Herein, we first developed a baroduric microsphere encasing biotic and chemical materials to remediate oil-contaminated sediments at deep-sea microcosm. Total oil degradation efficiency of microsphere-treated group reached 71% within a month, representing an approximate 35% increase compared to natural remediation. Absorption and biodegradation by microsphere provided a comparable contribution to oil elimination. Together with scanning electron microscope observation, the physical mechanism was that the reticulate structure of microsphere surface facilitating oil adsorption and bacteria attachment. Via metabarcoding analysis for meta and metabolically-active microbes, we demonstrated the primary working center was located at the microsphere. Proteobacteria, Firmicutes, Bacteroidota and Desulfobacterota were the key activated bacteria. More importantly, we revealed the ecological mechanisms were associated with the following aspects: 1) the addition of microsphere significantly improved the metabolic activity of bacteria (particularly including several oil-degrading taxa); 2) the microspheres enhanced ecological stability and microbial functional diversification during bioremediation; 3) expressing activity of pathways involving oil component degradation, biosurfactant production, biofilm architecture, biogeochemical and energy cycling all were observed to be up-regulated in microsphere-treated samples. Altogether, our results provide important theoretical guidance and data support on application of immobilization technology in removing in-situ oil pollution of deep-sea sediment.

Marine Oil Pollution Monitoring Based on a Morphological Attention U-Net Using SAR Images.

This study proposed an improved full-scale aggregated MobileUNet (FA-MobileUNet) model to achieve more complete detection results of oil spill areas using synthetic aperture radar (SAR) images. The convolutional block attention module (CBAM) in the FA-MobileUNet was modified based on morphological concepts. By introducing the morphological attention module (MAM), the improved FA-MobileUNet model can reduce the fragments and holes in the detection results, providing complete oil spill areas which were more suitable for describing the location and scope of oil pollution incidents. In addition, to overcome the inherent category imbalance of the dataset, label smoothing was applied in model training to reduce the model's overconfidence in majority class samples while improving the model's generalization ability. The detection performance of the improved FA-MobileUNet model reached an mIoU (mean intersection over union) of 84.55%, which was 17.15% higher than that of the original U-Net model. The effectiveness of the proposed model was then verified using the oil pollution incidents that significantly impacted Taiwan's marine environment. Experimental results showed that the extent of the detected oil spill was consistent with the oil pollution area recorded in the incident reports.

Spatiotemporal Changes and Recovery of Benthic Macroinvertebrate Communities after the Hebei Spirit Oil Spill in the Subtidal Area around the Taean Peninsula in South Korea

Marine oil pollution is a significant environmental issue that significantly threatens ocean ecosystems. It occurs frequently and has devastating consequences for marine life, coastal habitats, and human communities. We examined the recovery of benthic macroinvertebrate communities in shallow subtidal areas following the Hebei Spirit oil spill around the Taean Peninsula, South Korea, in 2007. Benthic macroinvertebrates were collected seasonally from 15 survey sites between 2008 and 2015. Immediately after the spill in 2008, species richness and density of benthic macroinvertebrates decreased by 66.7% and 37.0%, respectively, compared to before the oil spill in 2007. Cluster analysis based on benthic macroinvertebrate communities delineated the communities from 2008 to 2009 as a distinct cluster characterized by markedly low species richness. Communities from other periods exhibited spatiotemporal variability based on the sampling location and sediment characteristics. By 2011, species richness and density had recovered to levels similar to those in 2007, which was particularly pronounced regarding the resurgence of arthropods and mollusks. Notably, populations of amphipods that are particularly sensitive to oil, such as Urothoe sp. and Byblis spp., showed signs of recovery in 2011; however, recovery of the benthic community at the site nearest to the oil spill area, was not evident until July 2013, as indicated by the benthic opportunistic polychaete amphipod index. This underscores that prolonged time periods are required for communities to fully recuperate after oil spills.

A near real-time automated oil spill detection and early warning system using Sentinel-1 SAR imagery for the Southeastern Mediterranean Sea

ABSTRACT The ecological and environmental impact of marine oil pollution underlines the importance and necessity of an oil spill surveillance system. This study proposes an operational automated oil spill detection and early warning system to help take quick action for oil combating operations. Oil slicks in the spaceborne Sentinel-1 synthetic aperture radar (SAR) data are detected by a trained deep learning-based oil object detector. These detected oil objects are segmented into binary masks based on the similarity and discontinuity of the backscattering coefficients, and their trajectory is simulated. The detection process was tested on one-year SAR acquisitions in 2019, covering the Southeastern Mediterranean Sea; the false discovery rate (FDR) and false negative rate (FNR) are 23.3% and 24.0%, respectively. The system takes around 1.5 h from downloading SAR images to providing slick trajectory simulation. This study highlights the capabilities of using deep learning-based techniques in an operational oil spill surveillance service.

Marine oil spill detection using improved polarimetric feature based on polarization SAR image

ABSTRACT Monitoring marine oil pollution holds both practical and scientific significance. Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) is an active microwave remote sensing technique capable of all-weather and all-day with fine spatial resolution. However, under low wind conditions, rain cells and young ice are examples of look-alikes affect the accuracy of oil spill detection. Polarimetric SAR assumes a crucial role in this context, as it can extract abundant polarimetric features by polarimetric target decomposition. Drawing inspiration from this advancement, an improved polarimetric feature named relative feature based on Cloude-Pottier target decomposition was proposed. The Jeffries-Matusita distance indicates the substantial potential of the relative feature in detecting oil spills. The improved polarimetric feature within U-Net, FCN-8s, and DeepLabv3+ResNet-18 for oil spill detection using polarization SAR images. Experiment results demonstrated that the relative feature has superior performance compared to other polarimetric features and obtained the highest accuracy and dice within U-Net compared to the other two models. These findings introduce promising concepts for achieving rapid and precise detection of oil spills in future applications.

Comparative Analysis of Efficiency and Environmental Impact of Various Marine Oil Cleanup Technologies

Marine oil pollution, stemming from human activities, poses severe threats to ecosystems and coastal areas globally. This study assesses and compares various marine oil cleanup technologies, examining their efficiency and environmental impacts. The overview covers mechanical methods (e.g., skimming, barriers) and chemical/biological approaches (e.g., bioremediation, chemical agents). Evaluation criteria include effectiveness in diverse environments, cleanup speed, scalability, and cost/resource requirements. Case studies like the Dalian Port 7·16 Oil Leak and the Bohai Bay Oil Spill shed light on applied technologies and their outcomes. Recommendations emphasize enhancing cleanup strategies and regulatory frameworks for efficient responses to oil spill events. This study advocates for understanding cleanup technology limitations and ecological impacts while promoting sustainable strategies to combat marine oil pollution's adverse effects.

Sodium Alginate Aerogel as a Carrier of Organogelators for Effective Oil Spill Solidification and Recovery.

Marine oil spills pose a serious threat to the marine ecological environment. Phase-selective organogelators (PSOGs) are ideal candidates for oil spill gelation when used in combination with a mechanical recovery method. However, the toxicity of an organic solvent carrier has become a key problem when it is applied in the remediation of marine oil pollution. In this study, through an inexpensive and nontoxic ionic cross-linking and freeze-drying method, we successfully developed composite oil gelling agents that used a biomass sodium alginate aerogel as the carrier of 12-hydroxystearic acid (12-HSA). Simultaneously, carboxylated cellulose nanofibers (CNF-C) with large specific surface area and graphene oxide (GO) with excellent mechanical properties as reinforcing fillers were combined with an alginate matrix. 12-HSA, as a green and inexpensive organic gelator, was uniformly loaded on the aerogels by vacuum impregnation. The sodium alginate aerogel was capable of absorbing and storing oil due to its three-dimensional network skeleton and high porosity. Rheological studies have demonstrated that the organic gelator 12-HSA can be released from the aerogel substrate and self-assemble to form an oleogel with the absorbed oil quickly. The synergistic effect between absorption and congelation endows the composite oil gelling agent with efficient oil spill recovery capability. Based on eco-friendly, biodegradable, and simple synthesis methods, this composite oil gelling agent shows great potential for application in marine oil spill recovery.

Superhydrophobic foam combined with biomass-derived TENG based on upcycled coconut husk for efficient oil-water separation.

The ocean ecological environments are seriously affected by oil spilling and plastic-debris, preventing and significantly reducing marine pollution via using biocomposite production from natural fiber reinforcement is a more friendly way to deal with marine oil pollution. Herein, we upcycled coir-coconut into lignin and coconut shell into spherical TENG by a combination of dip-dry and chemical treatment and used the SiO2 nanoparticles together with cellulose nanofibrils to prepare serial sugar-templated, anisotropic and hybrid foams. The as-prepared lignin/SiO2 porous sponge (LSPS) with a hierarchical porous morphology and uniformly dispersed nanoparticles structure benefits from the advantages of biomass-based additives, which presents reversible large-strain deformation (50%) and high compressive strength (11.42 kpa). Notably, the LSPS was significantly more hydrophobic (WCA ≈150°) than pure silicone-based foams, and its selective absorbability can separate oil from water under continuous pumping. Meanwhile, the coconut husk was also upcycled as a spherical TENG shell by a combination of the nanofiber-enhanced polymer spherical oscillator (CESO), which possessed high triboelectric properties (Uoc = 272 V, Isc = 14.5 μA, Q = 70 nC) and was comparable to the plastic shell TENG at low frequency (1.6 Hz). The monolithic foam structure developed using this clean synthetic strategy holds considerable promise for new applications in sustainable petroleum contamination remediation.

A review on marine oil pollution and cleanup strategies

A review on marine oil pollution and cleanup strategies

Coral skeletons reveal the impacts of oil pollution on seawater chemistry in the northern South China Sea

Oil pollution can release trace metals (TMs) with cumulative toxicity into seawater, harming marine ecosystems in the long term. However, the lack of studies has inhibited our understanding of the effects and mechanisms of oil pollution on TMs in seawater. Hence, we investigated the 10-year monthly variation of TMs in Porites coral skeletons from the northern South China Sea (SCS), complemented by spatial distribution of TMs in seawater, sediments and characterization of TMs in fuel oil. The results of principal component-multivariate linear regression showed that the total contribution of oil pollution as a source to TMs in surface seawater was 77.2%, where the residence time of TMs (Ni, V, Cr, Co, Cu, Mn, Fe, and Mo) released from oil spills in surface seawater was approximately 1.4 months. Due to the geochemical nature of the metals, their seasonal variations are controlled by tropical cyclones (Ni, V, Cr, Co, Cu, Mn, Fe, and Mo), winter monsoons (Pb, Cd, Ba, and Zn) and sea surface temperature (Sr). This study shows that coral skeletons can be used as a new tool to study marine oil pollution. This provides valuable reference data for accurately identifying and quantifying the effects of oil pollution on TMs in seawater from a spatial and temporal perspective.

Legal advice on the Chinese compensatory fund system for oil pollution damage caused by ships from the perspective of marine environmental governance

As one of the primary obstructive factors for marine environmental governance, the frequent occurrence of oil pollution damage caused by ships has resulted in the establishment of compensation funds, such as the Oil Spill Liability Trust Fund of the United States, Ship Oil Pollution Fund of Canada and International Oil Pollution Compensation Fund (IOPC). Frequently suffering from marine oil pollution, China has extended considerable effort in marine environmental governance. Following the introduction of the ‘green principle’ into the Civil Code, China attached increasing significance to the legislation including compensation for oil pollution damage caused by ships. China formally established a compensation fund in 2012, and the past decade has witnessed the burgeoning development of the Chinese Ship-source Oil Pollution Compensation Fund (CSOPC), in addition to several defects which impede the fund from achieving the goal of marine environmental governance. As a national fund that is independent of the IOPC, the CSOPC adopts several regulations that are distinctive from internationally recognized practice; for instance, not recognizing pure economic loss within the scope of compensation. Such unique parameters, though partially originating from the national conditions in China, have resulted in glaring defects, including incomplete compensation scope and inappropriate compensation measures. Given the above problems, this study endeavours to provide several legal recommendations from the perspective of macro policies for improving the top-level design of the system, enhancing oil pollution compensation capabilities, and promoting the internationalization process. The study proposes two potential regulatory paths for innovation; namely, enlarging the range of compensation and establishing an essential emergency fund. From the perspective of protecting the rights of the victims of oil pollution damage and safeguarding the public interests of the ocean, this study puts forward relevant legal suggestions, which are expected to make valuable contributions to improving the compensation system for oil pollution damage caused by ships in China and promoting the governance of the marine environment.

Frozen salting hydrogels consisting of polydopamine and hydroxyapatite used for oil-water separation

In recent years, with the continuous advancement of industrialization and economic globalization, oil spill pollution incidents have become more and more frequent, among which marine oil pollution is the most prominent. If a large amount of oily sewage is not treated in time, it will pose a great threat to the safety of marine ecology. In this work, natural and biological materials were used to prepare PDA-HAP hydrogel, and the membrane was treated by freezing and salting out to effectively improve the strength of the membrane. The prepared membrane has good flux, can be used repeatedly, and is environmentally friendly. Therefore, this PDA-HAP hydrogel will play a significant role in the field of oily sewage treatment.

Disaster risk management in the maritime area of Romania. Case study: risk of oil pollution by modeling and simulation

Among the threats to the internal security environment, due to the associated risks, can be identified the economic activities that take place in the western part of the Black Sea coast: maritime transport, exploitation of resources in the maritime economic zone, economic objectives located in the coastal zone and so on. The paper identifies the risk of marine pollution with oil or other hazardous substances / goods, as a possible threat, with major economic, social, political and environmental implications. From this perspective, the paper emphasizes the need to identify solutions that increase the capacity to respond and intervene in order to counter threats and ensure resilience. The paper identifies a specialized tool, integrated in an innovative scientific approach, to support the authorities in managing the risk of marine oil pollution in the Romanian maritime area through modeling and simulation.

Two combination strategies of coordinated silicon elastomer and modified nano-silica to fabricate self-healing hybrid coating@fabrics with high oil-water separation capabilities

With an increase in marine oil pollution, efficient remediation strategies are required to completely remove the oily wastewater. The construction of self-healing coatings with high separation efficiency has become a hot research topic. In this study, the hybrid coatings of nano-silica synergized with self-healing silicon elastomer were prepared on polyethylene terephthalate (PET) fabrics by two combination strategies. Different combination strategies conferred various bonding states between the nanoparticles and the elastomer, affecting the hydrophobicity and stability of the materials. Self-healing silicon elastomer was prepared based on polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) crosslinked by iron-based coordination. The prepared hybrid fabrics exhibited high hydrophobicity with a water contact angle (WCA) of 145˚, and could maintain the hydrophobic properties after 20 cycles of mechanical abrasion. It realized 97% separation efficiency of multiple types of oil-water solution, even severe mechanical abrasion occurred, which still basically returned to the initial level after self-healing.

Oil spill identification in X-band marine radar image using K-means and texture feature.

Marine oil pollution poses a serious threat to the marine ecological balance. It is of great significance to develop rapid and efficient oil spill detection methods for the mitigation of marine oil spill pollution and the restoration of the marine ecological environment. X-band marine radar is one of the important monitoring devices, in this article, we perform the digital X-band radar image by "Sperry Marine" radar system for an oil film extraction experiment. First, the de-noised image was obtained by preprocessing the original image in the Cartesian coordinate system. Second, it was cut into slices. Third, the texture features of the slices were calculated based on the gray-level co-occurrence matrix (GLCM) and K-means method to extract the rough oil spill regions. Finally, the oil spill regions were segmented using the Sauvola threshold algorithm. The experimental results indicate that this study provides a scientific method for the research of oil film extraction. Compared with other methods of oil spill extraction in X-band single-polarization marine radar images, the proposed technology is more intelligent, and it can provide technical support for marine oil spill emergency response in the future.

Degradation potential of alkanes by diverse oil-degrading bacteria from deep-sea sediments of Haima cold seep areas, South China Sea.

Marine oil spills are a significant concern worldwide, destroying the ecological environment and threatening the survival of marine life. Various oil-degrading bacteria have been widely reported in marine environments in response to marine oil pollution. However, little information is known about culturable oil-degrading bacteria in cold seep of the deep-sea environments, which are rich in hydrocarbons. This study enriched five oil-degrading consortia from sediments collected from the Haima cold seep areas of the South China Sea. Parvibaculum, Erythrobacter, Acinetobacter, Alcanivorax, Pseudomonas, Marinobacter, Halomonas, and Idiomarina were the dominant genera. Further results of bacterial growth and degradation ability tests indicated seven efficient alkane-degrading bacteria belonging to Acinetobacter, Alcanivorax, Kangiella, Limimaricola, Marinobacter, Flavobacterium, and Paracoccus, whose degradation rates were higher in crude oil (70.3-78.0%) than that in diesel oil (62.7-66.3%). From the view of carbon chain length, alkane degradation rates were medium chains > long chains > short chains. In addition, Kangiella aquimarina F7, Acinetobacter venetianus F1, Limimaricola variabilis F8, Marinobacter nauticus J5, Flavobacterium sediminis N3, and Paracoccus sediminilitoris N6 were first identified as oil-degrading bacteria from deep-sea environments. This study will provide insight into the bacterial community structures and oil-degrading bacterial diversity in the Haima cold seep areas, South China Sea, and offer bacterial resources to oil bioremediation applications.

Marine Oil Spill Detection from SAR Images Based on Attention U-Net Model Using Polarimetric and Wind Speed Information.

With the rapid development of marine trade, marine oil pollution is becoming increasingly severe, which can exert damage to the health of the marine environment. Therefore, detection of marine oil spills is important for effectively starting the oil-spill cleaning process and the protection of the marine environment. The polarimetric synthetic aperture radar (PolSAR) technique has been applied to the detection of marine oil spills in recent years. However, most current studies still focus on using the simple intensity or amplitude information of SAR data and the detection results are not reliable enough. This paper presents a deep-learning-based method to detect oil spills on the marine surface from Sentinel-1 PolSAR satellite images. Specifically, attention gates are added to the U-Net network architecture, which ensures that the model focuses more on feature extraction. In the training process of the model, sufficient Sentinel-1 PolSAR images are selected as sample data. The polarimetric information from the PolSAR dataset and the wind-speed information of the marine surface are both taken into account when training the model and detecting oil spills. The experimental results show that the proposed method achieves better performance than the traditional methods, and taking into account both the polarimetric and wind-speed information, can indeed improve the oil-spill detection results. In addition, the model shows pleasing performance in capturing the fine details of the boundaries of the oil-spill patches.

Bifunctional remediation of oil spills based on pickering emulsification of polypyrrole-Ag3PO4/AgCl@Palygorskite

The frequent occurrence of marine oil spill accidents has brought great negative influence on the ecological environment and human development. In this study, polypyrrole-Ag3PO4/AgCl@Palygorskite (PAAP) was successfully synthesized by a simple co-precipitation approach and then it was used to realize the dual remediation of marine oil pollution based on Pickering emulsion-based photocatalytic technology. Here, palygorskite (PAL) functions as an effective Pickering emulsion stabilizer to disperse oil pollutants. In virtue of the dispersion of PAL, Ag3PO4-based photocatalyst is able to fully contact with the oil droplets, thus leading to a greatly improved photocatalytic degradation performance for oil pollution. PAAP-stabilized Pickering emulsion showed good stability in 7 days, which provided enough time for the subsequent oil photodegradation. The photocorrosion of Ag3PO4 was significantly alleviated by the introduction of polypyrrole and AgCl. Thus, the photocatalytic activity and reusability of PAAP were greatly enhanced compared with Ag3PO4@PAL. Additionally, this study explored the influence of illumination time, PAAP amount and environmental factors (such as salinity and wave fluctuations) on the emulsification-photocatalytic remediation ability of PAAP. Importantly, it was found that intermittent agitation could increase the removal of diesel greatly. Finally, the photocatalytic reaction mechanism and the possible diesel degradation pathways were analyzed through a series of experimental investigations.

Detection and Quantification of Daily Marine Oil Pollution Using Remote Sensing

Detection and Quantification of Daily Marine Oil Pollution Using Remote Sensing

Environmental issues Relating to Offshore Petroleum Installations -An International Perspective-

Petroleum is the main problem of marine pollution, as it can cause physical, biological and chemical changes to the sea. Pollution of the marine environment resulting from seabed activities is one of the main threats to this environment due to the use of offshore petroleum installations. This pollution can occur as a result of drilling operations, accidental drainage, burning and drilling mud operations, as well as explosions that may occur in oil wells. Petroleum pollution has directly affected fish, birds, mammals, marine bacteria and other living marine resources. Despite that, oil and gas from offshore oil fields still dominate in order to supply the world's energy needs. The international legal bases followed in the issue of marine oil pollution related to the offshore facility play a role in addressing the legal gap inherent in the concluded agreements. The agreements at the international and regional levels seek to establish a legal and regulatory framework to limit pollution from oil platforms, in addition to holding countries accountable internationally and civilly as a result of this pollution resulting from the marine facility located within their territorial waters.