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Sponge-Like "Swelling Glass" Absorbs Toxins in Water
MikeChino writes "A company called Absorbent Materials has created a new kind of 'swelling glass' that can clean up contaminated groundwater by soaking up volatile molecules like a sponge. Dubbed 'Obsorb,' the material can hold up to 8 times its weight in fuel, oil, and solvents without sucking up any of the water itself. Once the material is full it floats to the surface and the pollutants can be skimmed off."
Cost is an excellent question, since there is already a product that does something similar that has been around since at least 2007.
PRP (Petroleum Remediation Product) is made from beeswax and soaks up oils as well. Since it is so light, it floats on water and only absorbs the oils. The bee's wax encourages naturally occurring micro-organisms to eat. The microbes feast on the bee's wax and don't stop eating until all the oil is gone, safely, naturally bio-degrading the petroleum and the PRP itself.
I understand that they mix ground up corncobs into the PRP to make a version that works without water and can bio-degrade oil on land.
I can see only three reasons for the glass version.
1. If it is cheaper to make
2. Since you clean it rather than let it decompose, it is reusable. But the costs of making and cleaning still have to be cheaper than the cost of PRP.
3. If the glass version will absorb chemicals that cannot be degraded by the micro-organisms that feed on the beeswax.
Great civilizations have lived and died on false theories. Don't mess up mine with a few facts.
All very amusing political humor and shamwow references aside, it's a rare occasion where I can read a slashdot article and go "Wow, Cool!"
Neat and important creative advances like this pus back into me a little bit of the faith in humanity eroded by most of slashdot articles.
I would assume that this would be used in an above-ground treatment plant, given that water wells can be a thousand feet deep, but only a couple inches wide. This process is generally refereed to as "pump and treat", because you pump the water out of the ground, treat it and discharge to some surface body or use it for another application. As you draw down the water table, it causes the surrounding water to be drawn into the system as well, this prevents the contaminated groundwater from migrating down-gradient.
Typically you may use a carbon adsorption system for this application, since carbon will adsorb any kind of organic compound. Once the carbon is full, you treat it and reuse it, or you dispose of it by some other means. Granulated activated carbon is the material they would have to beat in order to make a good business case.
2 words: Biodiesel Harvesting