Spill absorbent products are very critical in the fight against spills and environmental pollution. Wolftank Austria presents its complete spill absorbents line, eco-friendly and able to recover hydrocarbon.
Wolftank Austria’s absorbent specialist, Mr. Haluk Ilhan, has recently presented our newest market innovation in the spill prevention. Please, check the complete interview with him.
Mr. Haluk Ilhan, please, tell us a few words about the spill absorbent products.
Spill absorbents, in general, are products which prevent environmental contamination by absorbing and recovering spilled liquids.
What can we expect from the Wolftank Austria’s spill absorbents?
Depending on what liquid one needs to contain, our spill absorbents line offers several spill absorbents kits with the following characteristics:
- 100% eco-friendly
- Made out of natural fibres with nano reinforcement
- Hyrophobic oil-only absorbing fibre technology which does not contain water
- Recovery machine to recover up to 99% of spilled liquids to sell them again
- Absorbent pillows and booms to be used at 3-4 times
- Fast absorption with lower disposal cost
What products can be absorbed?
Many products, definitely. Fuels, petrol, diesel, water, mineral oil, hydrocarbon solvents, coolants, paints, alcohols, dilute alkalis as well as agricultural chemicals. We have also customers using it in the pharmaceutical and food industry and for emergency spills, i.e., the absorption of blood.
What are natural fibres with nano reinforcement?
On the one hand, the nanofillers -such as our nano reinforcements- are mainly used because of their cost-effectiveness, biodegradability, lower weight, good mechanical properties and sustainability. Currently, these so-called nanofillers are the latest available improvement in material science and bring they a huge improvement for this sector.
On the other hand, this technology enables us not only to more effectively produce our spill absorbents, but it also highly increases the absorption process. 1 gram of normal filler absorbs up to 14 grams spill liquids. 1 gram of natural fibre with nano reinforcement spill material absorbs up to 50 grams. This means that it is around 3 times more effective than an usually spill absorbent product.
Why do you focus on the fuel recovery?
Well, by the introduction of the oil-only absorbent product line, we observed that in Middle East and in Africa many customers absorbed spills just by covering them with sand. Many of these customers now see a significant economic benefit to recover these fuels with our pillows. They can resell them again! Spill absorbent products have changed their business.
We also observed it for the offshore applications, where absorbent booms are distributed in the sea. The booms absorb only the oil, they recover the oil and they reuse the booms again.
Could you make a practical example, please?
A pillow with a weight of 300 grams can absorb up to 6 litres of fuel. With the current fuel prices, we speak about a value 6-10 euro to be recovered. When using a pillow several times, up to 25 euro of product can be recovered with one single pillow. For high price solvents and distillates the value can be up to 10 times higher.
Why do you promote the products also for environmental protection?
Many customers use the pillows in plants where some valves have a very slide leakage. Such a slide leakage does not justify immediately to take out a expensive production line. Oil only absorbent pillows allow to absorb the hydrocarbons of such a leakage by letting pass the water of rain figuring as an oil-water separator.
Are there any limitations on who can use this product?
The use of our absorbents is not limited to any specific sector. We have customers which use pillows to remove the oil from oil separators without taking the oil separators out of service. We have also customers who use them for cleaning operations or for oil changing of engines, from heavy ship engines to conventional cars.
If you have further questions, don’t hesitate to directly talk to our specialist by contacting us.
