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Ireland has freshwater and marine environments; both can become polluted by oil, a toxic substance that can be harmful to wildlife and destroy ecosystems. We wanted to research a method for removing toxic oils from Irish waterways.
Description
Our idea was to test whether waste dog hair could be used as a cheap and easy way of removing surface oil from water.
Methodology
We made a floating device with dog hair and developed a method to test how much oil could be absorbed by the floating dog hair filter under different conditions.
Data
In pilot experiments we showed that the dog hair filters absorbed oil and found the oil saturation volume. We demonstrated that the dog hair filters were effective in fresh and saltwater conditions and that different dog hair types were equally effective at absorbing oil. Finally, while our filters were not efficient at absorbing large oil slicks, we showed that dog hair and floating filters were effective when used with sedimentation tanks to remove oil during the water purification process.
Conclusion
In summary, we have shown that our floating dog hair filter could be used to absorb contaminating oil from the surface of water. Clipped dog hair is a waste product and repurposing the dog hair into filters could be used as a strategy to reduce landfill burden and as a cheap way of improving the quality of Irish waterways.
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