Russia develops floating station for removing oil from waterbody beds

Scientists at the Novosibirsk State University of Architecture and Civil Engineering have developed a floating station designed to remove oil and petroleum products from the beds of waterbodies following accidental spills. According to TASS, the system extracts bottom sediments, separates the various pollutants, and collects them into dedicated containers, enabling the cleaning of the bed to the full depth of the contamination.
Contamination of waterbody beds with petroleum products is particularly hazardous because toxic deposits can persist in the ecosystem for long periods, poisoning living organisms and potentially re-contaminating the water, which hinders the recovery of the aquatic environment.
The patent holders note that existing solutions for addressing bottom contamination are often costly and labor-intensive—for instance, because they require the extraction and subsequent processing of the sediment. Furthermore, surface-based cleanup tools are unable to address pollution within the water column or near the bottom, while other systems feature complex designs that can cause the erosion of bottom sediments, further complicating the cleanup process.
"The invention relates to the field of environmental protection and is intended for use in natural or artificial waterbodies affected by accidental oil or petroleum product spills," the statement reads.
The system is a mobile station designed to clean oil and petroleum products from the beds of waterbodies. It consists of a series of interconnected floating platforms, one of which houses a mechanism for extracting bottom sediments, as well as a device for separating these sediments into their constituent fractions. 

Alex Shishlo, Editor in Chief of the European Bureau, Rough&Polished