Business Opportunities Weblog

Window Screens and PVC Oil Spill Cleanup

By on January 22, 2013 in Inventions / News

LA Times:

Gerry Matherne recently built a helicopter from “a bit of this and a piece of that,” which made him a minor star on YouTube when the engine died in midair and he didn’t. He somehow landed the crippled craft beside power lines.

“I’m always inventing something,” said the gruff 61-year-old captain of an oil supertanker. “When I was a boy, a wristwatch was never safe in my hands. I’d dismantle anything to see how it ran.”

So when Matherne learned of the runaway BP oil leak, he considered it a personal challenge. He drove to a hardware store, bought some window screens and PVC pipe, and began to tinker.

The result is the first device that, according to BP engineers and Coast Guard officials, promises a faster, cheaper and more efficient way to remove spilled oil than traditional skimmers in the Gulf of Mexico.

Gerry Matherne’s oil cleanup invention is called the Heavy Oil Recovery Device (HORD) and is incredibly simple.

It uses a six foot long bag made of synthetic mesh (like the kind used in patio furniture). The bag is towed slowly inside of a large metal frame, like dragging a kitchen garbage can with a plastic bag insert around the room.

The bag captures the oil and allows the water to flow right through. Once the bag is full of oil (about two tons), it is tied closed and pulled up onto the deck and a new cleanup bag is loaded in the cage. Changing the bag takes about 45 seconds.

There’s a video after the jump.


WKRG.com News

Photo by marinephotobank.

Business Opportunities Weblog editor and publisher Dane Carlson lives in the Sierra Nevada mountains of California, just 15 miles from Yosemite National Park. He accidentally became a professional blogger in 2001. He has added 12,203 posts to the site.

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  • Jaclyn Wells

    This oil spill is such a sad thing, I cant even imagine what it is like for all of those poor animals that are use to having beautiful clean water to swim in, eat in and so on! Not to mention i know that it is so hard on the people who live in the area since A. they can’t swim in the water, B. cant fish the water for personal use nor can they fish the water for their own business survival. I’m really hoping that every new product and company that steps in to help makes at least a little bit of a difference in getting the ocean back to it’s normal state soon for everyone and all of the animals sake!

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