More on the BP Dispersant, Corexit EC9500

See 18-June Post for the composition per the EPA 


Nalco has issued additional info on Corexit EC9500, which is now being used in place of EC9527A. They claim it is a blend of six ingredients. On its MSDS, it has three ingredients that add up to about 45% of the total composition. Ordinarily you'd say the rest was water, but it is hard to say. A Nalco press release says that there are six ingredients, and then in crossword puzzle fashion gives clues as to what they are: 


    • One ingredient is used as a wetting agent in dry gelatin, beverage mixtures, and fruit juice drinks.
    • A second ingredient is used in a brand-name dry skin cream and also in a body shampoo
    • A third ingredient is found in a popular brand of baby bath liquid.
    • A fourth ingredient is found extensively in cosmetics and is also used as a surface-active agent and emulsifier for agents used in food contact.
    • A fifth ingredient is used by a major supplier of brand name household cleaning products for “soap scum” removal.
    • A sixth ingredient is used in hand creams and lotions, odorless paints and stain blockers.




Let's guess what they might be:

1. Probably the main surfactant, I believe an a fatty alcohol sulfonate -- probably ethoxylated
2. Is a petroleum distillate or a fatty alcohol-- which must be there for package stability
3. Is the propylene glycol
4. Appears to be a secondary surfactant. I am going to guess it is an EO/PO alcohol, where EO/PO stand for a block copolymer of ethylene oxide and propylene oxide. 
5. Is a water softener - certainly a non-phosphate type. It could be an polyacrylic acid type or many other things. 
6. Is a solvent, perhaps the petroleum distillate disclosed on the MSDS.

Opossum Eats(!) Greg's Late Spring Tomatoes :-(

An opossum that lives in the woods in the back. 

This was going to be a posting celebrating the tomato harvest on May 28th, which I am still proud of, but the opossum came by and ATE my tomatoes. Oh No!

Tomato skins that remain from the opossum.

Here is the residue from the missing tomatoes.








Happily there were a few tomatoes left. These were Sunsugar Cherry Tomatoes. They are orange colored, and usually sweet. These tomatoes -- like all very early ones -- are not sweet like they will be in late July.

Cherry tomatoes from another plant. 

The secret to early tomatoes is to get them to set fruit when they are still inside under the lights. If you move them out too early then there won't be flowers that get fertilized.  The fruit that sets outside won't be ready until July.

The warm weather this year really helped. I started these tomatoes in February, and used lots of Miracle Gro.  I used the Wall-O-Waters; see this post for details.

BP's Oil Spill Dispersant is Nalco Corexit EC9527A

||Update from 18 June 2010||

The detergent being used by BP, up until recently, was Nalco's Corexit EC9527A. Nalco is a large company that makes specialty chemicals including detergents and surfactants.  It contains three ingredients, a solvent we call EB ethylene glycol monobutyl ether, a sulfonic acid detergent, and a few percent of propylene glycol.

The sulfonic acid detergent is secret, but it is likely to be an ethoxylated/propoxylated version of lauryl sulfonate -- probably naphthalene sulfonate, but possibly toluene sulfonate or benzene sulfonate. The presence of propylene glycol in the product leads me to believe they propoxylated the detergent.

This detergent is pretty generic, and it is hard to believe it would that dangerous. The MSDS has a few hazards that are mostly due to the irritation that a concentrated detergent would have on the eyes or skin. There are hazards due to the EB, which has some liver and reproductive side effects. (Probably not the greatest choice, but I suppose its cheap.)

EPA has a long list of approved dispersants for cleaning up oil spills. It is important to note that Corexit EC9527A is on the approved list. [24-May-10 update: BP has been using a blend including Corexit EC9500, which has the same active ingredient as EC9527A, or so we think.]

Product (1:10 Product-to-No. 2 Fuel Oil ratio)	Toxicity (LC50 values in ppm)		Effectiveness (%)
	Menidia (96-hr)	Mysidopsis (48-hr)	Prudhoe Bay Crude Oil	South Louisiana Crude Oil	Average of Crude Oils
BIODISPERS	5.95	2.66	51.00	63.00	57.00
COREXIT® EC9500A	2.61	3.40	45.30	54.70	50.00
COREXIT® EC9527A	4.49	6.60	37.40	63.40	50.40
DISPERSIT SPC 1000™	7.90	8.20	40.00	100.00	73.00
FINASOL OSR 52	5.40	2.37	32.50	71.60	52.10
JD-109	3.84	3.51	26.00	91.00	58.50
JD-2000™	3.59	2.19	60.40	77.80	69.10
MARE CLEAN 200	42.00	9.84	63.97	84.14	74.06
NEOS AB3000	57.00	25.00	19.70	89.80	54.80
NOKOMIS 3-AA	34.22	20.16	63.20	65.70	64.50
NOKOMIS 3-F4	100	58.40	62.20	64.90	63.55
SAF-RON GOLD	9.25	3.04	84.80	53.80	69.30
SEA BRAT #4	23.00	18.00	53.55	60.65	57.10
SEACARE ECOSPERSE 52 (see FINASOL® OSR 52)	5.40	2.37	32.50	71.60	52.10
SEACARE E.P.A. (see DISPERSIT SPC 1000™)	7.90	8.20	40.00	100.00	73.00
SF-GOLD DISPERSANT (see SAF-RON GOLD)	9.25	3.04	84.80	53.80	69.30
ZI-400	8.35	1.77	50.10	89.80	69.90
ZI-400 OIL SPILL DISPERSANT (see ZI-400)	8.35	1.77	50.10	89.80	69.90

Mysidopsis Bahia  - a shrimp used in toxicity testing

Menidia Beryllina - the Inland Silverside

Toxicity is determined by the effect of the dispersant mixed with No. 2 fuel, oil 10:1 on Menidia Beryllina and Mysidopsis Bahia after 96 and 48 hours respectively. 


Wikipdeia reports that BP is ordering multiple truckloads of Dispersit SPC 1000 from US Polychemical. US Polychemical does not provide any detailed Chemical. A government filing says it is a mixture of nonionic and anionic surfactants, which is not very helpful at all.  This seems to be one of those industries where everyone keeps secrets from competitors, but I suspect all the products on the market are basically the same. 


According to the table above, the new dispersant Dispersit SPC 1000 is much more effective against South Louisiana crude, but also more toxic than Corexit EC9527A. 


Overall, I am glad to see that there actually is marine testing on these dispersants. I think that dispersants help more than they hurt, and that there is no way that this massive oil spill is not going to have a massive harm on the environment. Choice of dispersants can direct that massive harm one way or another. So far, we seem to have escaped severe damage. 


Update  31 May 2010


Nalco has issued additional info on Corexit EC9500, which is now being used in place of EC9527A. They claim it is a blend of six ingredients. On its MSDS, it has three ingredients that add up to about 45% of the total composition. Ordinarily you'd say the rest was water, but it is hard to say. A Nalco press release says that there are six ingredients, and then in crossword puzzle fashion gives clues as to what they are: 


    • One ingredient is used as a wetting agent in dry gelatin, beverage mixtures, and fruit juice drinks.
    • A second ingredient is used in a brand-name dry skin cream and also in a body shampoo
    • A third ingredient is found in a popular brand of baby bath liquid.
    • A fourth ingredient is found extensively in cosmetics and is also used as a surface-active agent and emulsifier for agents used in food contact.
    • A fifth ingredient is used by a major supplier of brand name household cleaning products for “soap scum” removal.
    • A sixth ingredient is used in hand creams and lotions, odorless paints and stain blockers.
Let's guess what they might be:


1. Probably the main surfactant, I believe an a fatty alcohol sulfonate -- probably ethoxylated
2. Is a petroleum distillate or a fatty alcohol-- which must be there for package stability
3. Is the propylene glycol
4. Appears to be a secondary surfactant. I am going to guess it is an EO/PO alcohol, where EO/PO stand for a block copolymer of ethylene oxide and propylene oxide. 
5. Is a water softener - certainly a non-phosphate type. It could be an polyacrylic acid type or many other things. 
6. Is a solvent, perhaps the petroleum distillate disclosed on the MSDS.




Having done all this guessing, anyone with a sample and a lab could figure this out in less than a day.  The only people in the dark are 300 million Americans. All the competitors could analyze this right away. There is no reason they should not be disclosing the composition in full detail, except as feeble attempt to confuse BP's purchasing agents. 

Breakthrough Bacteria with 100% Artificial Genes -- Another Coup For Craig Venter

At left is a photo of bacterial cells that have completely synthetic DNA. It is not a "synthetic cell" because they actually transplanted the artificial genes into a natural cell. That is, the technology to reproduce the rest of the cell's organs does not exist yet -- but we can synthesize the DNA, and the DNA can direct the synthesis of a daughter organisms.  Details are in Science.

The new organism is a synthetic version of  mycoplasma mycoides, which oddly is a parasite of goats and cows. The natural cell host was a closely related organism, mycoplasma capricolum, which causes pneumonia in goats. It seems these are quite small genomes, and that makes the task easier. 


Fans of Depth of Processing may remember my three previous posts on synthetic biology which mention Craig Venter and his institute. Venter sprang to prominence when he sequenced his own personal DNA with private funding at about the same time as the giant multi-national public effort finished. More recently he has made genetically engineered organisms for algae based power.  Venter has been waging a legal battle to get a patent on a synthetic organism, and anti-technology groups have been opposing him. 


The organism is dubbed "Synthia" and Venter's company Synthetic Genomics business plan focusses on what it is not. It does not contain scores of genes deemed non-essential. The hope is that new genes can be simply added to make the organism more useful industrially, pharmacologically or in energy production. This contrast with the conventional genetic engineering approach of putting new genes in a version of e coli. How much better a completely synthetic genome is, will be seen. If it actually permits a simpler more efficient organism, then it will be worth it.  The main feat in Venter's accomplishment was synthesizing so many base pairs without an error that disabled the organism. 


I view this development optimistically, and think what a great time to be alive and see this happening. I have little sympathy for those who think the synthetic biology is the source of some new flavor of evil. 


<<Oscillator Blog for another view>>

"It is not impossible to build a human brain, and we can do it in ten years." -- Henry Markham (2005)

Henry Markham is the leader of Blue Brain, and he claimed he could build a human brain in silico in a decade.  It has been five years now, and they are just finishing the feasibility stage. 

Markham claims to have modeled a network of 10,000 neurons, or 10^4. The human brain has 10^11 neurons, so it just needs 10^7 more. In fairness, if you could get the small scale brain right, duplicating it is not that hard.

 IBM has a human brain simulator project running, and it has the number of neurons as in a cat's brain. It is called C2, and it runs on a supercomputer at Lawrence Livermore Laboratory. The computer runs 83 times slower than a cat brain, taking 83 seconds to process what takes a cat only one second. A human brain is about 20 times larger than a cat brain.


C2 also sucks electricity. The computer takes 1.4 MW, and a human version would be 28 MW -- which is the size of a small industrial-scale power plant or a medium sized hydropower project.

IBM is designing chips to make this faster and more efficient. This is funded by our defense department -- who wants brain-like chips to make smarter devices. IBM has also release Blue Matter, which is a language for programing artificial brains. 

Programing artificial brains would be about the coolest job ever.

Stars Only Birds Can See; and Super-Perception

Duncraft makes decals to put on your windows to keep birds from striking. They are called "Save-the Birds," and they work by marking the window glass in near-UV "colors."  We routinely have birds taking off from the birdfeeder and crashing into the windows usually when they are scared by other birds.

I like the idea of this since birds see different colors than people. Like everyone, I wonder how birds see differently than I do.

People have three color receptors in the eye, but birds have four, including one in the near UV. If one puts a UV absorber in a clear object, birds can see it, but people see nothing.

In regard to a product review, I don't recommend the Save-the-Birds decals by Duncraft because they are still to visible to me. I think they are distracting. I don't know how well they block birds, but they are not as transparent as I hoped they would be.

Like a color blind person does not know what full color vision is like, people can't know what bird's vision is like.  The birds have a receptor for about 350 nm, which is in the near UV.

As discussed, people can only imagine what 4-color vision looks like, although we could use a UV camera to guess.

More interesting is introducing this fourth color receptor into people by genetic engineering. We know that mammalian ancestors had four receptors, and the our line lost them somewhere along the way -- probably during a nocturnal phase of development. Anyway, reintroducing the gene into the eye should induce Super color vision -- though one might have to be very young to have it work. That is the brain would need to rewire itself to perceive it.

I thought this was science fiction but Jay and Maureen Neitz have been working to do this in monkeys already begining eleven years ago. They have been able to cure color blindness in these monkeys, so to speak.  Jacobs at Johns Hopkins has been doing the same with mice. In monkeys and in mice, the adult brain's can rewire themselves to process the extra color.

If indeed color blind people can be cured, as these adult monkeys have been, it would be possible for adult humans to receive another color gene and have super-sensory vision.

I wonder what that would be like!

Paint or Die but Love Me

Gotta love this table from French artist John Nouanesing. I love the dreamy design and the wonderful red color.

Sadly this table has not (yet) been built, and the illustration is a rendering not a photo. It is entitled Paint or Die but Love Me.

News Reports about BASF buying Cognis are Increasing Again

||14 May update|| ||30 May Update||
||12-June Update|| ||19June Update||

The Financial Times is reporting that BASF's board has approved an offer for Cognis.

Bloomberg is saying the bid will be 3 billion euros. In mid-April it appeared that Lubrizol was going to buy Cognis for about 4 billion. 

What Happens When Machines Become Hysterical.

Today in ten minutes machines crashed the stock market.

What happened at 3:15 today? Some people think a multi-million dollar trader at a big bank screwed up sold a boat load of stock.

Suddenly all the trading computers on Wall Street thought the world was ending, and by 3:40 the market was down 700 points.

It has harder to tell what happened at 3:45 as the market went back up. Presumably bargain hunters are swooping in.

I like to wonder what happened when super fast trading programs go bad. It looks like the system had an "system instability", and once it fell so far, it just kept going. I know the machines were not crazy, but they were too fast for anyone to realize what was happening.

I am not sure any human could have figured out what happening in fifteen minutes either, but at least they could not have traded so much stock so fast.

Oh, the dollar/euro is up to $1.26 -- the strongest point for the dollar in 14 months. Great for employees of BASF, but not so good for US exports.

I was looking for an illustration of crazy, insane and hysterical machines and I found this wooden electromechanical elephant.

I don't know if it depicts crazy machines, but it is depicting something.

It is from Les Machines de L'ile in France.

Tomatoes are in the Ground

I put the tomatoes in the ground Saturday.

This year there are five tomato varieties:

Sun Sugar - Pinetree Seeds
Sun Gold - Pinetree Seeds
Black Cherry - Pinetree Seeds
Best Boy - Burpee
Black Truffle - Burpee

This reflects my recent preference for the flavor of cherry tomatoes, Sun Sugar, Sun Gold and Black Cherry are all cherry tomatoes.

I started them all inside in February, and happily several of them have small tomatoes already, and all five have flowers. This promises some early harvesting. The goal is to have the tomatoes set fruit inside because once they are outside, it will too cold for pollination until June.

I have planted them in Wall-O-Waters. At left is a photo, but someone else's yard, as it was too dark and rainy to photograph mine.

The patent on Wall-O-Waters must have run out because now Burpee is in the store with "Aqua-Shield," which is the same thing, but shorter and wider.

They are clever because they are simply plasticized PVC film filled with water. If a freeze comes, the plants won't freeze until after the whole water-filled shell freezes. Since a few hours at 28 F would not do that, the plants are safe.

I expanded the garden by a about a third this year. This is part of my annual over-enthusiasm for gardening that I get every Spring. I turned over sod, and treked in new topsoil from Home Depot. I am compensating the fact that the strawberries have taken over a quarter of the garden themselves.

I need to get the peas and lettuce started.

!!See this post for my early season harvest -- such as it was.!!

Lala -- The Music No Longer Plays ;-(

Lala is a on-line music service that lets you keep you music on-line and on its servers -- in the cloud.

Apple bought Lala on November 5, 2009 for 80 million, and on May 31, 2010 Apple will shut it down.

Apple is shutting it down because Lala does not work on the iPad. Lala uses Adobe Flash 10 to  play music, and Apple has publicly [and loudly] not installed a Flash player for the iPad.

One of the best uses for Lala would be to play songs on the iPad.

Although I could sync my whole library on an iPad -- just like on an iPod, this is complicated though since "our" iPad as actually my wife's so she has her music on it. This make Lala better since I am a squatter when use it.

As a Lala customer who has uploaded 3005 songs to Lala, I am not happy. Here is a case of one strong competitor squashing a smaller competitor that was providing a good product at a good price.

The best thing about Lala was that I could listen to a whole song before buying it -- unlike the 30 second samples on iTunes. The songs cost $0.89.

Lala was not perfect. I wondered why the Lala Music Mover was transferring all my music, but after a few nights of downloading, I had a portable music resource.

Speculation is that Apple is going open an online version of iTunes for streaming music. This is related to a huge data center they are building in North Carolina. 

The sad news is when you log on to Lala now, you see the message that they are not accepting new members, and now there are only 31 days left. Soon the music will No Longer Play.