Got Kitty Litter?

[CoffeeCat]

We use kitty litter to soak up oil in our garage and it works well.

Is there any way that we could dump some kind of industrial "kitty litter"
in the ocean, into the oil?

[Urban Prairie]

1. Guess what the drilling "mud" is partly comprised of...heh...n/t

[meow2u3]

2. Pretty soon, the Gulf of Mexico will start to smell like cat pee

If the oil won't kill the shrimp, the ammonia from all that cat pee just might.

[spin]

3. LOL. Love the graphic! (n/t0

[Cleita]

4. We need to remove the oil out of the ocean, somehow, not dump more foreign

substances down there for the ecological system to cope with. There is a suggestion on a German news website that profers using straw to soak up the oil and put it in the holds of ships to be dealt with somewhere else maybe by burning it off. But the bottom line is that no one knows what to do and most solutions will have a downside.

[Are_grits_groceries]

5. Here's what one company offered:

West Bloomfield entrepreneur and inventor Adria Brown believes she may have the solution for cleaning up millions of gallons of oil spilling into the Gulf of Mexico -- corn cobs.


Brown is the president and CEO of Recovery I Inc. and inventor of "Golden Retriever," a patented technology that uses dried corn cobs to absorb spilled oil. Her invention is being reviewed by the U.S. Senate and has received support from Sen. Charles Grassley of Iowa, according to WDIV and WWJ.


Brown told the West Bloomfield Beacon that her technology was proven to be effective by Canada's environmental agency. Golden Retriever has not been used to clean up a significant spill, according to the paper.

According to Brown's U.S. patent application from 1992, Golden Retriever uses dried corn cobs in their natural state. The technology is considered economical, since it can use cobs that already have been processed for agricultural uses, and efficient to clean up, since the cobs remain afloat after absorbing oil.

PatentVest: Once the oil is absorbed, the soaked corn cobs can be scooped up by any suitable means and taken to a designated place for extracting the oil from the corn cobs by mechanical extraction devices, such as a press. After recovery, solvents may also be used to extract the oil. Moreover, after the oil is extracted, the corn cob remnants could be a fuel source. Alternatively, the soaked cobs may also be used as fuel source.

Brown told the Beacon that she has 34,000 tons of dried corn cobs that can be used immediately for the Gulf oil spill.
http://www.mlive.com/business/detroit/index.ssf/2010/05/west_bloomfield_inventor_belie.html

The spill is probably way too big now. However, it might not hurt to try this in one place. I don't think all the corn cobs in the midwest would be enough.

[Cleita]

6. Corn is grown all through the Americas. Maybe that would be enough. b/t

[SidDithers]

7. Corn cobs have been used for decades...

the original Pig socks, from New Pig were filled with ground up corn cobs. These are the people that basically invented the spill response product industry.
http://www.newpig.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/ContentPageView?langId=-1&storeId=10651&catalogId=13007&pg=%2FB2BDirectStorefrontAssetStore%2F%2FStoreInfoArea%2FAboutUsSection%2FOurHistory.jsp&title=The+Story+of+New+Pig+-+A+supplier+of+products+for+leak+and+spill+management%2C+industrial+safety+and+plant+maintenance

Then, one day while cleaning walls and machinery at a local factory, an epiphany! Instead of using sand to blast grease and sludge off machines, we substituted ground corncobs, a less abrasive method of cleaning. As the ground corncobs accumulated on the floor, we discovered what we had been searching for — rapid liquid absorption! Within weeks the research lab produced a prototype — a nylon sock about 40 inches long and 3 inches in diameter, filled with ground corncob. Of course, since it looked like a long sausage, the "pig" nickname held firm. In a few weeks, "pigs" flooded local customer sites, and the feedback was good.

The year was 1985. Far lighter and much more absorbent than clay, the PIG® Absorbent Sock was born.

Corn cobs, like hay and hair won't select the oil from the water. They'll only end up being saturated with water as well as oil. That's why companies like New Pig also sell oil-only, selective sorbents. In a marine spill environment, you need to be able to soak up the oil but leave the water behind. For that, you use a product like dried peat moss or meltblown polypropylene.

Sid

[notadmblnd]

9. Corn cobs, they're not just for outhouses anymore

[Blue-Jay]

10. Ouch.

[Wizard777]

8. I think there is a product that is basically kitty litter for oil spills. I think it's called Clino.

I saw some news show years ago on a patent dispute over it.

[undeterred]

11. I think its made by the same companies.

Kitty litter and oil soakup stuff, that is.

[Blue-Jay]

12. A mixture of cat litter and sawdust works well to clean up my garage floor.

I wouldn't dump it in the Gulf, however.

[Bitwit1234]

13. There is also some kind of "oil soak up" you can buy

and it soaks up the oil in your garage. My son bought some to clean up oil but I can't remember the name. It did a very good job. It is a shame they can't use something like that to spread on the gulf and then scoop it up to soak the oil up.

[Tesha]

14. The classic...

http://www.oildri.com/