Government Evaluation of Sorbents for Oil Spill Response

The United States Coast Guard (USCG) Research and Development Center (RDC) and the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement (BSEE) plan to carry out evaluations of newly developed, innovative Type I sorbents for potential use by Federal On-Scene Coordinators (FOSCs) or Oil Spill Removal Organizations (OSROs) during crude oil/fuel oil/diesel spill incidents. According to ASTM F726-17, Type I sorbents are defined as roll, film, sheet, pad, blanket, and web sorbents. Type I sorbents are used during most oil spill incidents, typically in nearshore cleanup or for smaller, nearshore spills. Academia or manufacturers of new sorbent products frequently approach FOSCs during an active spill with the hope that responders will use their products. This is both helpful and burdensome to the command structure and could require a team of responders to first evaluate these technologies to determine the veracity of manufacturers' claims. This diverts their attention from the response at hand. It would be cost effective and forward-leaning to have Government evaluation of these technologies prior to the time of need.

This Request for Information (RFI) is part of a market research effort to collect information on new and innovative sorbents with a technology readiness level (TRL) of 6 to 8 that would be of interest for use by spill responders. Note that sorbents with a TRL of 9 will not be considered for this evaluation. There is a significant level of current sorbent research targeting the use of advanced materials to enhance adsorption rate and/or capacity, the use of natural or recycled materials to reduce the use of plastics, sorbents that can be reused multiple times to reduce secondary waste, and the development of biodegradable materials to provide an environmental benefit. RDC-BSEE are interested in sorbents that provide one of these benefits over sorbents traditionally used in response operations. Sorbents of interest can be single use or reusable. This RFI is focused both on the sorbent innovation as well as how it will be used in the field, i.e., how it will be deployed and retrieved and how reusable sorbents will be processed. Reusable sorbents will only be considered if the sorbent provider has also developed a sorbent recovery system to process the sorbent. For this RFI, the sorbent recovery system is defined as the technology and method for extracting the oil from the sorbent and processing the sorbent for reuse.

RDC-BSEE will invite sorbent providers to provide their sorbent technology to BSEE’s National Oil Spill Response Research & Renewable Energy Test Facility (Ohmsett) for testing. At Ohmsett, RDC-BSEE will execute evaluations of the sorbents’ efficiency and effectiveness in adsorbing spilled surface oil. For reusable sorbents, this assessment will include evaluation of the sorbent recovery system.