By Ebele Orakpo
The days of spending tons of money and between 11 and 12 months to clean up an oil spill on our waters, seem to be over as a Nigerian researcher,Engr. Taslim Owonikoko, ManagingDirector/Chief Executive Officer of Iseyin, Oyo State-based Berekotry Detergent Limited, has come up with a solution, interestingly made from agricultural waste. He spoke withVanguard Learning on his new invention.Excerpts:
Motivation:
Call it serendipitous discovery and you will be right because according to Owonikoko, he did not set out to look for an oil spill cleaner. He was actually looking for alocal, more environment-friendlyand cheaper alternative to phosphate in his detergent formulationand also to create jobs for the teeming technical workforce.
”The oil spill cleaner came up as an offshoot of trying to impact Nigerians positively and satisfy Nigerian customer base. Nigerian consumers are very meticulous and know the dynamics of the market more than thetechnical workforce. We wanted to knock off phosphate from Nigeria to save our waterways which areusually covered by water hyacinth.
“Many people do not know that water hyacinth on our waterways is causedby waste laundry water laden with sodium tripolyphosphate (STPP) in detergent formulations. At that time, nobody knew the negative effects of STPP in detergent formulations. So we were trying to createsomething that will bea plus to the environmental wellbeing of Nigerians using as much local content aswe can. “We wanted to reallymake an impact on the society through our interest in Research and Development (R&) and based on the fact that we work on agricultural waste round the clock to create very good industrial products. We have been working tirelessly to ensure that we impact the rural dwellers and the unemployed graduates roaming the streets through agriculture, Nigeria being an agrarian society,”Owonikoko said.
Searching for an alternative:
Engr. Owonikoko explained further; “Carboxyl cellulose is the most expensive aspect of detergent formulationso if we had increased that, as requested by the market, we would nothave been able to compete with those coming from Asia so we needed to look inwards.....This is world’s fastest and safest oilspill mopping agent that has been certified by all regulatory bodies in the OPEC world and the DPR in Nigeria. Sowe have not only just produced a mopping agent, we have created one of the best in the oil industry.
The DPR bio-assay analyst said our product on touching crude oil on water surface in Nigerian environmental condition, reduces toxicity of oil by 200 per cent which meansthat the oil has been totally arrested and coagulated and therefore, no longer toxic to aquatic life. Based on the information we got from the National Oil Spill Detection and Response Agency (NOSDRA), we got to know that the imported enzymatic cleaning agent takes between 11 and 12 months to clean oil spill especially in the riverine areas but our own solution will clean within just 10 minutes.”
. Read more http://www.vanguardngr.com/2013/03/nigerian-invents-fastest-safest-oil-spill-cleaner/

I think this good news deserve front page...@mod

@mods....front page oooh. Atleast this one fit clean those tonto decayed topics on nairaland frontpage asides crude oil...
This thread don dey since 3days and still yet e never make frontpage.. Na wa oh.. But una fit carry the year 1921 topic put for frontpage abi?? This is what happens when seun puts a tomato seller incharge of research study...