Currently there are about 200 types of oil sorbents produced in the world for liquidating oil spills. These sorbents can be divided to organic, naturally organic, organic-mineral and synthetic types. Sorptive qualities are mainly defined by their capacity to oil, hydrophobic level (water resistance), post-sorption abilities, oil desorbting and regenerating of utilizing of the sorbent.

Organic sorbents:

          Sorbents of this type are usually certain sorts of clay, diamite rock (mostly loose diatomite- ceyssatite), sand, zeolite, tuff, pumice stone etc. Mainly clay and diatomite rocks cover most of the oil sorbent market due to their low cost and possibility of large-capacity vessel production. Sand is also used for covering small sized oil and petroleum product spills, however the quality of organic sorbent is completely inappropriate for the ecology. The biggest cons are that organic sorbents have a very low capacity (70-150% for oil) and have no way of holding in light ends. Organic sorbents sink together with oil after liquidating the water surface oil spills, thus not solving the water treating issue. And the only way of utilizing these sorbnets is flushing them with extragents of PAV purified water or burning out.

Synthetic sorbents:

          Mostly these sorbents are used in countries with highly developed petrochemical industry. Synthetic sorbents are produced from polypropylene fiber which is formed into non-woven rolls with different density. Another type of synthetic sorbents is polyurethane in spongy or granulated form formed into PET or other types of plastic. However usage of synthetic materials transformed into subsieve powder for increasing efficiency is prohibited due to possibilities of carcinogenic risk. And on top of that synthetic sorbents are very hard to utilize because they are totally resistible to biodegradation and can only be burned out.

Natural organic and organic-mineral sorbents:

          Natural organic and organic-mineral sorbents are the most promising type of sorbents for liquidating oil pollutions. Common types if these sorbents are wood chips and sawdust, modified torf, dried grain products, wool and mixed paper. One of the best natural sorbents compared by capacity only with wood pyrolysis is wool. Wool can absorb up to 8-10 tons of oil per 1 ton of its own mass, meanwhile natural elasticity allows releasing most of the oil light ends. However after few releasing cycles wool turns into bituminized felt which has no further purpose. The cons of wool such as high cost, material deficiency and strict storage regulations (wool attracts rodent, insects and goes through biochemical transformations) can't allow wool to be counted as promising oil sorbent.

          ECOLAN sorbent is produced using a new technology based on nonchemical wood pyrolysis. This technology was created based on researches in areas of hydrophobization and hydrophilicity nature of different materials and is protected by patents of RF.