During the last five years, we have been conducting a research, the purpose of which is to elucidate how emulsions are formed in the ship bilges that occur, sometimes, under vigorous agitation, and, other times without it. This is a vexing problem for the armed forces, as all the naval ships collectively produce massive amount of oil contaminated water that is difficult and/or expensive to purify before the purified water can be discharged back to the ocean .