Oil contaminated sand: an emerging and sustainable construction material

Crude oil spillage severely impacts the environment and affects the physical and chemical properties of the surrounding soil. Due to prohibitive cost of cleaning and disposing oil contaminated sand, mixing and stabilising them with cement and using them in construction is now considered as an alternative and cheap remediation method. In this paper, the effect of oil contamination on the mechanical properties of sand and its concrete were reviewed. In addition, the results of the on-going research and development on the effects of light crude oil contamination on the properties of fine sand and the produced mortar are presented. For fine sand contaminated with light crude oil, it was found that the cohesion increased significantly up to 1% of oil contamination and then decreased with increasing percentage of crude oil while a slight reduction in frictional angle was observed with oil contamination. The highest compressive strength was obtained for mortar with 1% oil contamination and with only a 18% decrease in strength of mortar with 10% oil contamination compared to the uncontaminated samples. More importantly, the compressive strength of mortar with oil contaminated sand was found suitable for some engineering applications indicating their high potential and beneficial use as an emerging and sustainable material in building and construction.