In today's (Wednesday) Home and Garden section of the StarTribune I have a column about American White Pelicans that breed in Minnesota. The pelicans winter on the Gulf of Mexico. Since the BP oil spill on the Gulf the birds have returned to nesting grounds carrying oil and oil-dispersant pollutants. Scientists in Missippippi, however, might have found a dispersant that is not harmful to birds. Read on.
It's counter-intuitive to think that a constituent of peanut butter could keep oil off birds. After all, what holds the pickles, chips, or banana slices in the sandwich if not the peanut butter?
Scientists at the University of Southern Mississippi (USM) have, however, used edible ingredients found in peanut butter, ice cream, and chocolate to fashion a dispersant that allows oil to run off a duck's back, just like water. Toxicity testing is yet to be done, but food-safe ingredients bode well for success.
A paper describing the chemical was delivered in August at the National Meeting & Exposition of the American Chemical Society. Presenting the paper was Dr. Lisa Kemp of USM, a member of the team there that developed the chemical.
"The use of traditional dispersants is really a lesser-of-evils choice that has to be made," Dr. Kemp said in an email. You either let the oil be or disperse it to lessen its impacts.
"Many of the traditional dispersants contain petroleum distillates as solvents and many are good wetting agents. They allow the oil to spread and stick to surfaces better," Dr. Kemp wrote.
"Our dispersant is very different than these traditional dispersants," she wrote. "Ours is a solid product made from food-safe ingredients. It doesn't contain any solvents or petroleum distillates."
Once dispersed with the new chemical, oil still floats on the surface of the water in small droplets. But – and this is the key -- the droplets have become non-sticky.
