Protection products tackle spills and leaks

Industry Superstore (ISS) is now stocking the Wolftank-Adisa range of environmental protection products for the prevention of contamination in industrial plants, facilities and soil.

Leaks and spillages of liquids and hydrocarbons are disruptive to companies’ operations, costly to clean up and damaging to a business’s environmental reputation. The new products in the fight against spillages are said to prevent environmental contamination by absorbing spills and providing effective subsequent product recovery.

Spill absorbent materials and products from Wolftank-Adisa, for whom ISS is sole UK distributor, are 100% eco-friendly, being made of natural fibres with nano reinforcement. The absorbent socks, pillows and booms can recover up to 99% of spilled liquids, it is stated. “Absorption is fast and the fluids can be easily extracted from the pillows through compression after recovery is complete: not only is disposal cost reduced, but in many instances spilled product may be recovered and reused.”

Liquids and hydrocarbon products

Suitable for use with a wide range of liquids and hydrocarbon products, including oil, petrol, diesel, mineral oil, solvents, coolants, paints, alcohols and agricultural chemicals, the absorbent materials used by Wolftank are said to be “up to three times more effective than standard spill absorption products. A single gram of the natural fibre with nano reinforcement material can absorb up to 50 grams of spilt liquid, which means a 300-gram pillow could absorb up to 6 litres of fuel. And because the material is hydrophobic, only the hydrocarbon is absorbed, not water”.

The absorbent socks, pillows and booms can be reused three to four times and the nano fillers themselves are biodegradable, making the spill prevention technology highly environmentally friendly.

Wolftank has many examples of successful uses of the pillows and booms in real-world spillages. Where there have been fuel spillages, rather than just cover them with sand there is now the ability to absorb, recover and resell the fuel, bringing significant economic benefit. In offshore applications, absorbent booms have been distributed in the sea to recover oil after a spillage – because the booms absorb only the oil, not the water, the oil can be easily recovered and the booms reused.

Oil-water separation

It is not uncommon for many plants and facilities to accept slight leakage from valves as a fact of life, because a small leak doesn’t justify the cost of the downtime incurred in replacing the valve. Wolftank pillows, it is stated, not only absorb the oil, but also let rainwater pass, effectively acting as an oil-water separator. In other applications, customers have used the pillows to remove the oil from an oil-water separator without having to take the separator out of service.

ISS offers a suite of environmentally-focused products that include overfill sensors, oil-in-water sensors, groundwater monitoring sensors, leak detection sensors and prevention devices, as well as pipe repair technologies. “All of these can be combined to form a comprehensive strategy for environmental protection,” it adds.