MIT Develops "Paper Towel" For Oil Spills

TheUnknownCoder writes "MIT scientists have created a Nanowire mesh that can selectively absorb hydrophobic (oil-like) liquids from water up to 20 times its weight. The membrane can be recycled many times for future use, and the oil itself can also be recovered. There's even a video of it in action, removing gasoline from water."

Comments

clever

[yincrash]

Honestly, that's pretty awesome.

Re:clever

[g-to-the-o-to-the-g]

This is not the first time someone has done this. I work in the oil & gas industry, and there are a number of different products for cleaning up oil. At work we use pig mats, which won't absorb water (if you buy that type). They work as well as anyone could hope for.

Re:clever

[Kamots]

I think the clever part about this is that you can heat up these new pads, boil the oil off... let it condense elsewhere...

And then you've got reclaimed oil and a pad that's ready to go again.

Re:clever

[hedwards]

It has been done before, the article mentions that fact. What's apparently special about this particular material is that it absorbs much less water and it's easier to get the oil out of it again later.

It also appears that it's inexpensive enough that it'll likely pay for itself easily through selling the reclaimed oil and damage reduction.

If they can manufacture it in sufficient quantity at a good price, there's tremendous potential here. Oil spills will happen as long as oil is being transported, we still don't have the best possible way of cleaning it up yet.

This does have other uses as well, it could be used to more efficiently remove oil from storm drains or from ground contamination as well.

In other news Oil Tanker crews....

[g0bshiTe]

are enjoying rum being brought back aboard ship en masse.

Best part about this?

[Flamora]

The fact that the oil can be captured and reused, as well as the membrane itself being reusable.

Re:Best part about this?

[Vectronic]

- Redundant.

But, I was hoping the video would show them light the mysterious blue gasoline after.

If it can "recover" gasoline and be instantaniously reuse it... thats very impressive, especially if there are liquids that can reduce, or eliminate the combustability of liquids while mixed with it, and then use the nano-fabric to seperate them and use either for an purpose. Gasoline tanks, airplanes, etc. not to mention many other uses.

Re:Best part about this?

[The -e**(i*pi)]

The company my das works for used to sell a chemical that emulsifies gas so if like a tanker ruptures on the road u spray this stuff on it and immediately you could use a blowtorch on it all day and have 0 chance of lighting it.

Re:Best part about this?

[Vectronic]

Yeah there are quite a few products like that, but most of them are really complex and cancel eachother out (making both ineffective for their original use), at least with respect to something as simple as a piece of fabric being able to seperate them.

But you could combine a fuel with another liquid that releases fumes that cancels out the feuls fumes, so that if there was a leak an ignition would be far less or completely impossible.

But a simple piece of this cloth in a feul filter, could seperate the feul from the liquid, use the feul, and then use the liquid to say cool the engine.

A better version of: http://www.freepatentsonline.com/4158551.html

sweet deal

[bsDaemon]

So, we can now clean up the environment without losing the petrol? That's so good it has to be fattening.

This is the sort of thing which should have made the "top 10 technologies of the next 4 years" list rather than punk-ass "social networks"

What else does it absorb?

[name*censored*]

Does it absorb other liquids as well? If this absorbent power works as well as advertised for other fluids, I may have to petition MIT to release this fabric in sock-form.


Oh.. umm, so I can uhh.. dry my feet. Yeah, that's it. Feet.

hydrophobic liquids

[overcaffein8d]

that is a great idea... but it's only nonpolar things it can absorb. if it's e85 they're transporting, only 15% will be recovered, and that will all be gasoline (the rest'll just get the fishies drunk)

but if it did pick up polar compounds, it would also pick up water

p.s. never eat sodium polyacrylate.

Re:hydrophobic liquids

[icegreentea]

How often do people ship e85 over ship like that? I'm serious, I have no idea. I would have thought that oil tankers carry primarily crude oil to refineries, and then the separated stuff from it all over the world, where it gets turned into e85 (or e15 or w/e) locally.

Also, since ethanol is polar, it'll rapidly dissolve into the water and then spread everywhere. Even if you had a membrane that would selectively pull out ethanol, by the time you got there it would have dispersed all over the place (horizontally and vertically). Pulling ethanol out like that would be unfeasible I would think.

Re:hydrophobic liquids

[Drakonik]

True, but is that really such a bad thing? Ethanol, compared to gasoline, is harmless. I'm pretty stoked that we'll be able to just lay down a big mat of this material down on top of oil spills in the ocean, and underneath our cars in garages, or maybe even just wrap it around the oil reservoir to create a double-hull of sorts.

Honestly, this would be revolutionary if it could pick up half its weight in oil. The stuff is RECLAIMABLE for chrissake. I can't really say continued use of oil is going to do the world a lot of good, but this goes a long way to preventing waste and helping prolong our limited supplies.

Re:hydrophobic liquids

[smaddox]

Yeah, but it is only reclaimable if you heat it above the evaporation point of the oil. Good luck doing that in air. The risk of combustion is too high.

Doing so in a nitrogen environment is possible, but is it really any cheaper than just making another sheet?

Re:hydrophobic liquids

[Drakonik]

Don't they boil crude oil to separate gasoline from diesel from plastic-grade crude, and so on? I think (assuming that the material is heat-resistant enough) we could just throw a big pile of it into the separator tanks and boil it out.

It's possible that I misunderstand the process, of course. Is it just not that simple?

Practical Application

[Aqua_boy17]

There's even a video of it in action, removing gasoline from water."

What I need is the exact opposite of this. I have water in the gas tank of my old truck that I can't seem to get rid of. Every time the guage gets below about an eighth of a tank, it begins coughing and stalling. I've tried some commercial remedies available at auto parts stores, but nothing seems to work well. Draining the tank is a real pain, as well as being very dangerous.

Wow, what a coincidence...just as I was typing this, Car Talk came on the radio. Maybe I'll call those guys.

Re:Practical Application

[maxume]

Unless you are constantly and effectively avoiding gas that contains ethanol as an oxidizer, you probably have some problem other than persistent water (so water could be constantly leaking in...). The ethanol will pull the water into the fuel mix and carry it through the engine just fine, so the water should burn off in a tank or two, it shouldn't persist if you are using gas with ethanol in it, and you probably are.

"Dry gas" products are often just ethanol or methanol.

Re:Practical Application

[bmwm3nut]

Are you sure that it's water in the tank? The symptoms don't sound like it. Gasoline floats on water, so water should be on the bottom of the tank right where the fuel pick up is. Water should be pumped out first and then fuel.

Re:Practical Application

[Aczlan]

Well, when it starts acting up it only takes a gallon or so of clean gas to get it running again. I might be inclined to suspect a leaking fuel pickup... which would suck in air if the hole is above the level of the gas... Just m $.02

Filtering exhaust fumes?

[mikael]

Could this be used to filter car and big-truck exhaust fumes?

Re:Filtering exhaust fumes?

[Tweenk]

There are two problems:
1. The exhaust fumes would have to be precooled. Otherwise, any absorbed hydrocarbons would be desorbed right away due to high temperature.
2. Reactive species of nitrogen present in exhaust fumes (NO, NO2, etc.) would oxidize the nanowires, so you would have to have a catalytic converter somewhere before them in the exhaust path to remove them, and the cooling phase would have to occur between the converter and the nanowire absorber (platinum only works in high temperatures).

Since the converter does the same job already (by catalyzing the oxidation of unburnt hydrocarbons in excess oxygen), I think this would be redundant. Additionally, I suppose the nanowires would only remove aerosols and not gaseous hydrocarbons, so the standard platinum converter may actually be more efficient at reducing HC emissions than nanowires.

finally :)

[jacquesm]

When we completely run out of oil we will have found the perfect solution to clean up the environment...

Also, by that time the ability to recover the last bits of oil from the oceans from spills in the past will be fought over with tremendous military might, even if it's done from rowing boats.

Now I know why there are so many people in prison, it's to supply our future stock of galley slaves powering the next global war.

Re:finally :)

[maxume]

Nuclear powered liposuction is equally as ridiculous, and it would probably result in more fuel, at least the first time around.

Re:finally :)

[TubeSteak]

When we completely run out of oil we will have found the perfect solution to clean up the environment...

Also, by that time the ability to recover the last bits of oil from the oceans from spills in the past will be fought over with tremendous military might, even if it's done from rowing boats. There's actually a lot of oil sitting on the sea floor, because it doesn't float forever.

That seafloor oil is one of the main reasons that drilling off the coast of California and in the Gulf of Mexico is not allowed. Whenever there is a spill (and there always is, platform drilling is dirty), oil sinks and mixes in with mud on the seabed. Whenever a big storm rolls in, some of that oil gets churned up and washes ashore.

If you've ever been on a beach with oil on it, it isn't pretty.
You need a stiff brush to get the hydrocarbons off your feet.

Here's the most recent example I can recall:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jiyeh_power_station_oil_spill
That oil is going to be washing up on beaches & shorelines for decades.

Re:finally :)

[maxume]

I advocate turning other people into fuel.

I'll be old someday, but I'll never be someone else.

Get real

[WindBourne]

It was from Gartner. They are a bunch of idiots, so why pay attention to those kinds of lists. In fact, I was actually surprised that it made /.

Re:Get real

[ColdWetDog]

Besides we can (and do) already DO this. We've had these hydrophilic absorbent pads for years. Have one in the bilge of my boat right now. They work great (even when wet which is supposedly one of the advantages of this new thing).

In fact, the US Coast Guard gets pretty annoyed if you don't have some method of cleaning up spills. From TFA, this stuff is supposed to work "better" - tastes great, less filling, picks up more stuff, won't absorb water. Likely it will cost lots more (bad idea, the stuff we have is reasonably expensive). The reusable but is interesting - I'm not sure how you would get the hydrocarbon out of the fabric without creating more of a mess or environmental issue than you already have. If you CAN do this, you have one leg up on the big boy versions of these products that are used to contain actual oil spills. These get recycled in the dump. AFAIK, it's always been possible to recycle the oil from the commercial booms, just not easy, environmentally friendly (think of the detergent that the spill containment people dump out to break up the heavier oil products) nor economically feasible.

We'll see, if it ever gets out of the lab.

Re:Get real

[Ian Alexander]

Besides we can (and do) already DO this. We've had these hydrophilic absorbent pads for years. Have one in the bilge of my boat right now. They work great (even when wet which is supposedly one of the advantages of this new thing).

In fact, the US Coast Guard gets pretty annoyed if you don't have some method of cleaning up spills. From TFA, this stuff is supposed to work "better" - tastes great, less filling, picks up more stuff, won't absorb water. Likely it will cost lots more (bad idea, the stuff we have is reasonably expensive). The reusable but is interesting - I'm not sure how you would get the hydrocarbon out of the fabric without creating more of a mess or environmental issue than you already have. If you CAN do this, you have one leg up on the big boy versions of these products that are used to contain actual oil spills. These get recycled in the dump. AFAIK, it's always been possible to recycle the oil from the commercial booms, just not easy, environmentally friendly (think of the detergent that the spill containment people dump out to break up the heavier oil products) nor economically feasible.

We'll see, if it ever gets out of the lab.

According to the article, all one has to do to recover the oil is to heat the pad beyond the boiling point of oil. The pad remains intact but the oil evaporates.

Re:Get real

[ColdWetDog]

Good point, missed that. But that means you have to heat the pad to between 175 and 300 Degrees C. That's a fair amount of energy there.

Re:Get real

[StrahdVZ]

Also according to the article, production techniques are similar to paper and thus the expect it to be considerably cheaper. Of course, patent capitalism will disagree.

Mining Polluted Waterways

[Doc Ruby]

I'd love to see someone use these materials to filter regular polluted water in our waterways (after a regular filter to keep living creatures out) to both clean the water and recover usable chemicals for fuel.

And someday someone's going to figure out how to cheaply and easily mine our landfills for all that plastic we've buried for nearly a century. When the cheap oil's gone soon, that's going to be a reasonable alternative if we have the tech.

Re:Mining Polluted Waterways

[Doc Ruby]

I think we'll do it with something like geobacter cultures GM'ed to require a critical "mask" nutrient that is easy to supply to only the target soil volumes where it doesn't occur otherwise (and is itself both harmless and, naturally, biodegradable). That way we can just "innoculate" target areas, work the nutrient into the soil, and let nature do the rest. Perhaps a variety of geobacter that putrefies the plastic into a recoverable sludge, then physically work the sludgy soil to collect the sludge into recoverable pits.

Or maybe there's a way to harvest the geobacter products with earthworms. Maybe we can get the earthworms to depend on the sludge - or some material in it, leaving the energetic oil undigested or stored in their bodies - into their diet. As well as some other "bait" nutrient that we leave at the surface. Then maybe we can just let "nature" do the work of digging the treasure out of the dirt and bringing it home to harvest, with minimum energy input and maximum sniffed out recovery, but all under control so we don't unleash some terrible plague that entirely destroys our "pre-trash" stock of plastic.

Human hair is awesome too...

[MacDork]

Human hair does a great job of adsorbing oil, is renewable, and reusable. It can also be burned as fuel when you're done with it. 200,000 pounds of it goes into landfills every day. You could have enough to adsorb the entirety of Exxon Valdez by collecting what is produced in this country in a week.... and it would be essentially free.

You kids and your fancy nanowire meshes... ;-)

Re:Human hair is awesome too...

[TubeSteak]

Human hair does a great job of adsorbing oil, is renewable, and reusable. ... You could have enough to adsorb the entirety of Exxon Valdez by collecting what is produced in this country in a week.... and it would be essentially free. You think human hair could be used to soak up some of the $2.5 billion Exxon owes the businessmen and citizens of Alaska?

At least the case will finally be over in July, when the Supreme Court hands down its decision.

Re:Human hair is awesome too...

[Tweenk]

It can also be burned as fuel when you're done with it. Hair contains about 5% of sulfur. Burning large amounts of hair wouldn't be a very good idea, unless you like inhaling sulfur oxides.

Yeah but...

[allmanbro2]

To reclaim the oil, you have to boil it. Seems like on many scales you would use more energy "wringing out" the paper than you would get from the recovered fuel.

Re:Yeah but...

[foniksonik]

As always it depends on where the energy comes from to generate the heat to bring it to a boil... OTOH if the material is expensive, more so than the oil... they'll just do it anyways to reclaim the material.

Re:Yeah but...

[Castletech]

To reclaim the oil, you have to boil it. Seems like on many scales you would use more energy "wringing out" the paper than you would get from the recovered fuel. Very true but think about the time and energy used to clean up current oil spills. It may balance out.

Same or similar to this earlier discovery?

[Dalrain]

I was reading the description, and it seems to have the same properties as a material discovered by a professor at my institution. http://www.wooster.edu/News/0708/news/PaulEdmistonGel.php

Don't forget Cherokee hair!

[DaFork]

Human hair does a great job of adsorbing oil

I hear that Cherokee hair is the most absorbent material in the world!

Never eat sodium polyacrylate

[patio11]

Well there go my dinner plans. Thanks a lot, Slashdot.

(OK, for those of us who are not materials scientists: its the chemical equivalent of D&D's old Dust of Dryness. You know, does 6D6 if sprinkled on a water elemental, or draws the water out of what it touches on the way down if you eat it. Not too likely to be fatal, though, unless you swallow it in quantities large enough to make table salt fatal. The MSDS says emergency treatment is "drink two glasses of water and then induce vomiting".)

They should just use this instead...

[Justin Hopewell]

There was an article on The Onion years ago about a new three-ply Bounty paper towel that was supposed to be so absorbent, moisture would be pulled into it, whereupon the liquid would go through a rigorous "Moisture Punishment System". If you didn't reseal the roll in its special case when you weren't using it, it could absorb all the moisture in the room and asphyxiate you. When asked if they were thinking about introducing a four-ply version, the Bounty spokesperson said, "Oh, no. That would be playing God."