THE EXPERIMENT
INTRODUCTION
Oil-consuming countries are far from the countries that produce it, which makes it necessary to transport hydrocarbons by sea. The Mediterranean sea is only 1% of the total surface of the oceans, but still 30%, 650000 tonnes, of the hydrocarbon routes worldwide circulate in the Mediterranean.
For this reason, ECOLY focuses on the problems that may exist due to discharges in this type of contaminants.
In our experiment, superabsorbents play a very important role, these are substances that are appropriate for absorbing oils and hydrocarbons in a non-aggressive manner and in a clean and effective way.
GOALS
The main goal of this first experiment was to confirm the presence of hydrocarbons in the water of the harbour, and therefore be able to assess if our project was really feasible and could be carried out.
RESULTS
We have observed that, in the negative control, the super-absorbent was scattered, and in the positive control it was concentrated forming an aggregate on the surface of the glass.
We have seen that, our sample at the beginning has been aggregated, although it was not as visible as positive control. We have also seen that there were areas where it dispersed, imitating the behavior of negative control.
CONCLUSIONS
We have come to the conclusion that the presence of hydrocarbons in the waters of the port of Barcelona exists, but they are not visible to the human eye since they are quite diluted. For this same reason we have not been able to observe large aggregates since the concentration that was in the sample was too small to be able to form the same aggregates that formed the gasoline.
We also wanted to observe the presence, or not, of surfactants, as they could be interacting with hydrocarbons and therefore make it difficult to detect them. We could see the presence of foam, but this was not persistent, therefore we have deduced that this foam was due to Halita, the mineral that gives salinity to the sea and that forms the foam of the waves.
 Positive control |  Sample |  Negative control |
|---|---|---|
 comparation between the controls and the sample |  testing of surfactants and formation of foam formed by halita |  Superabsorbent |