Justice, P.Jordan, A.Aguilar, D.Sheardy, R.Sheardy, R.2024-05-142024-05-142024https://hdl.handle.net/11274/16161An estimated 706 million gallons of oil are lost to the environment per year, the impacts are widespread from water pollution, loss of habitats, and shoreline erosion. While there are many oil remediation (OR) techniques, our focus lies in physical-chemical remediation. Gemini surfactants (GS) are a promising use in OR techniques due to the low toxicity to the environment and high efficiency. With the use of 12-n-12 (where n=2,3,4,5,6) GS, we are exploring its potential in OR due to its ability to form micelles at extremely low concentrations, known as the critical micelle concentration (cmc). To evaluate its efficacy as an OR technique, we contaminated sand with common motor oil and added varying concentrations of the GS solution to attempt to remove the motor oil from the silica sand. The results of our experiment will be analyzed by various spectroscopic and non-spectroscopic techniques. (Faculty Sponsor: Dr. Richard Sheardy) Supported by Robert A. Welch Foundation M-0200, NSF Award 1953448en-USPresentation