Environment Saver at UIUC




Floating telescoping weir skimmer/ Photo by Hsin Yu Chang

 

Due to the BP oil spill disaster in the Gulf of Mexico, oil spills have become one of the more prominent issues throughout the world. However, you might not know that one of the most efficient solutions lies here at UIUC campus.

The floating telescoping weir skimmer, developed by Tim Lindsey, who is associate director in Illinois Sustainable Technology Center, is believed to be able to clean about 100 barrels of polluted water a day. Students in the class Science and the Media got to take a look at the model of this new invention while taking their field trip to the ISTC.

“It is certainly a better alternative than the chemical dispersant they are using right now,” said Rebecca, one of the students in the class.

The floating skimmer works similar to a vacuum. It sucks polluted water in and separates oil from the water by using a purification system Lindsey invented previously to separate oil from industrial cleaning liquid. This invention is able to solve mass environmental disasters caused by oil spills or industrial waste and therefore caught the eyes of the public and sponsors. Lindsey mentioned that he already got funding to build a full size prototype. Unfortunately, the students were not able to see the actual prototype; however, they got to tour around the research laboratory in ISTC.

The mission of ISTC is to help companies to be more sustainable. The researchers in ISTC usually go through the industrial operations and find out how the companies can be less wasteful. They also research and invent tools such as the floating telescoping weir skimmer to solve problems created by industry or the problems within the operating system. For example, Lindsey just helped a company to cut down their usage of water. “They think water is cheap, but they did not think about the true cost of ‘using water’ which includes the energy to process water to be used. Using water is actually very expensive,” said Lindsey. Visit http://www.istc.illinois.edu/ for more information about ISTC.