Optimized Skimmer Design for Enhanced Oil Spill Recovery and Marine Environmental Protection: Addressing Key Challenges in Oceanic Pollution Control

Abstract

Environmental pollution, energy consumption, and greenhouse gas emissions are critical global issues. To address these challenges, optimizing skimmer coatings is a major step in commercializing cleaning oil stains. This research presents a novel approach to creating and refining oil-absorbent coatings, introducing a unique oil spill removal skimmer enhanced with a super hydrophobic polyaniline (PANI) nanofiber coating. The goal of this study was to improve oil absorption performance, increase the contact angle, lower drag, reduce energy consumption, achieve high desirability, and lower production costs. PANI treated with hydrochloric acid was a key focus as it resulted in higher porosity and smaller pore diameters, providing a larger surface area, which are crucial factors for boosting oil absorption and minimizing drag. To optimize optimal nanofiber morphology, PANI synthesized with methanesulfonic acid was first dedoped and then redoped with hydrochloric acid. After optimization, the most effective skimmer coating was achieved using a formulation consisting of 0.1% PANI, an ammonium persulfate/aniline ratio of 0.4, and an acid/aniline ratio of 9.689, along with redoped PANI nanofibers. The optimized skimmer exhibited a remarkable contact angle of 177.477°. The coating achieved drag reduction of 32%, oil absorption of 88.725%, a cost of $1.710, and a desirability rating of 78.5%. In this study, an optimized skimmer coat containing super hydrophobic coat–PANI nanofibers was fabricated. By enhancing contact angle and reducing drag, these coatings increased the skimmer performance by improving oil absorption and reducing fuel consumption.

Keywords

Nanofiber-based skimmer / Oil absorption / Drag reduction / Polyaniline nanofiber / Superhydrophobic / Oil spill removal

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