Finalists announced for Wendy Schmidt Oil Cleanup X CHALLENGE
If there was one thing that last year's Gulf of Mexico oil spill showed us, it was that there were no particularly good systems in place for containing and removing such spills while the oil is still out at sea. One year later, although many companies and individuals have come forward with their concepts for such systems, little has actually been developed to the point of being ready for deployment. In order to generate some incentive, and provide financial support to the cream of the crop, the X PRIZE Foundation is now in the midst of its US$1.4 million Wendy Schmidt Oil Cleanup X CHALLENGE. Although the competition has been under way since January, the ten finalist teams were announced just last week.
Since 2004, the X PRIZE Foundation has held a series of contests designed to encourage research and development of emerging technologies. These have included the Ansari X PRIZE, for reusable private spacecraft; the Archon Genomics X PRIZE, for human genome sequencing; the Google Lunar X PRIZE, for robotic lunar rovers; the Northrop Grumman Lunar Lander X PRIZE, for vertical take-off and landing rocket vehicles; and last year's Progressive Automotive X PRIZE, for practical yet highly fuel-efficient automobiles. Last July, the Foundation announced that it was planning a competition for oil spill cleanup innovations.
Named for its benefactor, American philanthropist Wendy Schmidt, this year's event is "designed to inspire a new generation of innovative solutions that will speed the pace of cleaning up seawater surface oil resulting from spillage from ocean platforms, tankers, and other sources." The contest is focused specifically on technologies for cleaning up oil at the spill site - this is because a greater amount of environmental damage has taken place by the time oil reaches the shoreline, or has drifted for days at sea.
From a pool of over 350 pre-registered teams, the organizers have pared the competition down to ten finalists, announced on May 24th. Those teams will now proceed to work on their various oil spill clean-up systems, with the final competition set to take place in October at New Jersey's OHMSETT, the National Oil Spill Response Research & Renewable Energy Test Facility. There, a panel of eight judges will select the three systems that have the highest Oil Recovery Rate (ORR) of over 2,500 U.S. gallons-per-minute (9,463.5 liters-per-minute) with an Oil Recovery Efficiency (ORE) of more than 70 percent.
The first place winner will take home $1 million, with $300,000 going to second place, and $100,000 to third.
Here's a quick look at some of the teams that will be competing.
Crucial, Inc. (US)
This Louisiana firm manufactures an absorbent coating material, that can be applied to the company's drum or disc surface skimmers in minutes. Once in place, it reportedly boosts those devices' oil recovery rate by up to 500 percent. Its ORE ranges from 87 percent at 400 gallons-per-minute to 82 percent at 880 GPM - it will be interesting to see how that scales up to a minimum of 2,500 GPM.
Koseq (The Netherlands)
Koseq makes a device known as the Victory Oil Sweeper. The V-shaped apparatus consists of two forward-angled rigid floating arms, that channel surface oil into a skimmer mounted between them. The Sweeper can be pushed in front of a smaller vessel, or pulled alongside a larger one. The angle of the arms can be adjusted, so they can cover as much surface area as possible by opening wide, or fit into narrow waterways by closing up.
Vor-Tek Recovery Solutions (U.S.)
This California company's entry in the competition is something known as the EEL, or Emergency Extraction Line. It consists of a series of floating joined horizontal modules, that extend out from a support vessel or oil platform in a weir boom setup. A pipeline running through the modules is joined to a high-power pump on the vessel, drawing both surface and subsurface oil (and water) through intakes on the side of each module. Once pumped aboard the vessel, the oil and water are fed through a separator.
Enviro Voraxial Technology (U.S.)
Elastec/American Marine (U.S.)
This Illinois-based team has created a unique grooved disc skimmer. The company has previously designed oil-catching surfaces for skimmers, that reportedly boosted oil recovery rates by up to 200 percent over conventional technology.
Playing its cards pretty close to its chest, Lamor simply told us that "We will present a new high-capacity offshore OSR [oil spill recovery] concept with a huge scalability potential base on our patented oleophilic brush technology with new features for all types of oils and scenarios."
The other finalist team in the Wendy Schmidt Oil Cleanup X CHALLENGE is Pacific Petroleum Recovery, from the U.S. We are still waiting for them to get back to us regarding their entry in the competition, and will update this article when they do so.