Dispersant efficiency comparison between cactus mucilage and commercially available dispersants

Oil spilled at sea spreads producing extensive damage to marine and wildlife habitats and tourism industries as in the recent Deepwater Horizon oil spill (also referred to as the BP oil spill, or the Macondo blowout) an oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. Use of dispersants can be a rapid response method because they remove spilled oil from the surface and dilute it into the bulk of the water column as droplets at a faster rate than occurs naturally. Chemical dispersants have the potential to bioconcentrate, and they cause damage to the marine life and environment. This study investigates the use of natural dispersants extracted from the Opuntia ficus-indica cactus (also known as the Nopal or Prickly Pear) plant to formulate oil-in water (O/W) emulsions. Through simple extraction processes, three fractions of mucilage gum have been obtained from fresh cut Opuntia ficus-indica pads including a Gelling Extract (GE) and Non-Gelling Extract (NE) and combination of these two fractions. We estimated the properties of O/W emulsions in terms of droplet size distribution, and stability of the formulations comprised of three fractions of the Opuntia ficus-indica cactus mucilage as function of gum concentrations. This dataset reports particle size distribution data for various concentrations of gelling and non-gelling extracts, and combinations of gelling and non-gelling extracts exposed to different salt concentrations.