IES staff underwent intensive training with IMBTEC President, John Brinkman at their

Ahmadi offices on 26-28 July 2009 on the use of Imbiber Beads® for hydrocarbon
spill and hazardous material management. Those attending included Brian Freeman, Enas Al Farra,
Dr P.K. Krishnan, Rabab Shamyleh and Linu Simon.

 

IMBTEC is an American company based in Arkansas that exclusively manufactures
and distributes Imbiber Beads®. IES, along with their sister company PETCO, recently
became the exclusive GCC agents for Imbiber Beads®. Under the arrangement, IES provides
the marketing and technical consulting skills needed to properly utilize the products.

 

Imbiber Beads® are “engineered” to “capture and contain” organic liquids, which include
crude oils, transportation fluids such as gasoline, No. 1, 2 & 3 fuel oils, JP-4, JP-5, JP-8,
JET-A, JET A-1; chlorinated solvents such as carbon tetrachloride, methyl-chloroform,
trichlorobenzene, PCBs; aromatic solvents such as benzene, toluene, cumene, styrene,
ethyl benzene, methylnaphthalene, and more polar compounds including methylisobutylketone,
tetrahydrofuran, ethyl acrylate, vinyl acetate, methylmethacrylate and
other hydrocarbon-based chemicals.

 

Imbiber Beads® are unaffected by water, providing distinct advantages for picking up
spills on water during loading and off-loading operations at refineries and terminals,
refueling operations at marine installations or military facilities should an incident occur
while it is raining.

 

The “absorption” is purely physical, meaning there is no heat generated as in a chemical
reaction.   As a result, the absorbed chemicals are not affected and can be used for energy or recovered through desorption methods. Some chemicals will require a longer period of time to be “imbibed”. Imbiber Beads® are the only hydrocarbon response product that “absorbs”
material instead of “adsorbing”. 

 

The resulting absorption process actually increases the size of the Beads up to 2-3 times
the original bead diameter. The amount of liquid absorbed is dependent on the material and temperature. For distillate products such as gasoline and diesel, the beads will absorb up
to 27 times their initial volume. The efficiency of the Imbiber Beads® means less spill
products are needed on hand. 

 

Additional benefits of the beads and the absorption process are that the absorbed liquid is
held tightly within the material and will not drip or leak out, even if squeezed or compressed under
mechanical pressure. This eliminates the chances of secondary contamination during
removal of the beads and reduces the rate of vapor release by up to 600%. 

 

Imbiber Beads® is a Registered Trade Mark of Imbibitive Technologies Corporation