On Tuesday, October 11, 2011 Team Elastec, a partnership of co‐inventors Elastec/American Marine and Glosten Associates, Inc., was awarded the $1 million first prize for winning the X‐Prize Foundation’s Wendy Schmidt Oil Cleanup Challenge with an ocean‐capable oil recovery system that shattered previous records for oil recovery rate and efficiency under controlled conditions.
Glosten provided vessel engineering, mechanical system design, and operations support throughout the aggressive 45 day development process, integrating Elastec’s Grooved Disk recovery technology into a sophisticated and robust recovery system. This system, a U‐shaped aluminum hull outfitted with the ingenious collection and separation systems, achieved an incredible oil recovery rate of 4,670 gallons per minute (gpm) at 90% efficiency – eclipsing both the X‐Prize Challenge recovery goal of 2,500 gpm at 70% efficiency and the second place finisher’s recovery rate of 2,712 gpm at 83% efficiency.
Elastec/American Marine and Glosten are currently developing this winning combination of collection and Grooved Disk recovery technologies into several derivative designs, including a compact, easily deployable oil‐recovery package expected to be commercially available shortly.