Engineers Recycle Oil-Field Technology to Tackle Toxins

CONTACT: Philip Montgomery
PHONE: (713) 831-4792

ENGINEERS RECYCLE OIL-FIELD TECHNOLOGY TO TACKLE TOXINS

A group of Rice researchers are recycling oil-field technology
and know-how to tackle underground pollution as part of a Department
of Defense move to cleanup military bases.

Professors of chemical
engineering George Hirasaki and Clarence Miller are leading a team
that relies heavily on enhanced oil-recovery technology from the
late ’70s and early ’80s. The technology combines surfactants, which
are detergent-like substances capable of removing solvents, with air
to create a foam capable of displacing pools of pollutants trapped
underground. The project is one of 12 selected to participate in the
Department of Defense’s Advanced Applied Technology Demonstration
Facility, which is based at Rice.

Hirasaki is after a villain known
as DNAPLs, short for dense nonaqueous phase liquids. DNAPLs include
chlorinated solvents often used by the U.S. Air Force as degreasers
on jet engines.

###