This is sand contaminated with crude oil. The free oil on the surface indicates that the sand is fully saturated with crude oil. The sand can hold no more crude oil and any additional crude will form on the surface, kind of like a mudpuddle.” Crude oil saturates sand at about 200,000 parts per million (about 20% by volume).

In this particular demonstration there are 72 quarts of water in the tank. We added 2 quarts of enzyme forming the aqueous solution which will be used to treat the oil contaminated sand. This results in slightly less than a 3% solution.

In order to activate the Aqueous solution and make it homogenous (distribute it evenly) a pump connected to the mix tank was started. 

The bucket of contaminated sand was slowly added into the mix tank. Agitation was run for 12 minutes allowing the Aqueous solution to scrub the oil from the sand.

For demonstration purposes the cleaned sand was collected in a 5 gallon bucket and transferred by hand to separation screens.

The material was dried and the screens were shaken in order to separate the different particle sizes. Particle type, geometry, and density were evaluated. For a single stage process the cleanliness of the sand was remarkable. Notice that there is no oil sheen. In production a closed loop would be utilized to provide multiple stages of cleaning.