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MIT Unveils Oil-Skimming Robot Swarm Prototype

Posted by timothy on from the so-burning-harmless-eh dept.

destinyland writes "Today MIT reveals a swarm of autonomous floating robots that can digest an oil spill. The 16-foot robots drag a nanowire mesh that acts like a conveyor belt to soak up surface oil 'like paper towels soak up water,' absorbing 20 times its weight and then harmlessly 'digesting' the oil by burning it off. Powered by 21.5 square feet of solar panels, the 'Seaswarm' robots run on the power of a lightbulb, and with just 100 watts 'could potentially clean continuously for weeks' without human intervention, MIT announced. The swarm uses GPS data and communicates wirelessly to move as a coordinated group to 'corral, absorb and process' oil spills, and MIT researchers estimate that a fleet of 5,000 could clean up a gulf-sized spill within one month."

9 of 123 comments (clear)

  1. Yeah! by somersault · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Burning oil is well known for being harmless!

    --
    which is totally what she said
    1. Re:Yeah! by tomhudson · · Score: 3, Interesting
      FTFA: http://web.mit.edu/press/2010/seaswarm.html

      By heating up the material, the oil can be removed and burnt locally and the nanofabric can be reused.

      Notice the URL - it's MIT saying this, not someone mis-quoting them.

      Also, good luck with that during hurricane season.

      Additionally, bad math alert. To clean up 5 million barrels in 30 days with 5,000 units, each unit would have to pick up 33 barrels a day. 16'x7'= 112 square feet. A barrel is 42 gallons, and there are 7.5 gallons in a cubic foot. So, 33 barrels is 1,385 gallons, or 184.5 cubic feet. Your skimmer will be towing a chunk of oil-soaked nanofibres half a yard thick - you're not going to be making much headway dragging that with only 100 watts (1/8 horsepower).

      It might start out okay, but as you collect oil, it will get worse, so take that 1 month and make it a year.

  2. "clean up a gulf-sized spill within one month." by larry+bagina · · Score: 4, Informative

    sure, maybe, if you exclude all the sub-surface oil. And there's a lot of subsurface oil.

    --
    Do you even lift?

    These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.

  3. OK, so it sops up some oil. Then what? by Animats · · Score: 2, Interesting

    OK, each unit sops up some oil, using "nanowires". Then what? The oil then has to be transferred to some collection boat. That part isn't implemented.

    A fleet of semi-autonomous skimmers that deliver oil to a collection ship or a shore station would be useful. Operations like that are risky for small boats, as are operations near shore, near rocks and reefs, and such. So it's a good robot application.

    The "nanowires" just sound like the usual hype from MIT's PR operation (which has gotten out of hand enough to be an embarrassment for MIT.)

    1. Re:OK, so it sops up some oil. Then what? by hipp5 · · Score: 3, Informative

      Then what? The oil then has to be transferred to some collection boat. That part isn't implemented.

      The way I read it was that each bot disposed of the oil by burning it on-site. No need for central collection.

    2. Re:OK, so it sops up some oil. Then what? by tomhudson · · Score: 2, Insightful
      The math doesn't work. 16'x7' is 112 square feet. 33 barrels of oil (which is how much would have to be removed each day by a fleet of 5,000 skimmers) covers that to half a meter thick, and weights 4 tons. You won't be going very fast towing that with a 1/8 hp (100 watt) motor.

      So, skip the self-propelled aspect, just attach floaters to the absorbent, toss them in the sea, pick them up, pass them through a wringer to squeeze out the oil instead of heating it, rea-attach the floaters and toss them back in.

  4. Re:That's a lot of oil to burn by vadim_t · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Solar is much simpler. You just need a panel and a battery.

    Burning oil is more complicated. You need an engine that can burn crude mixed with whatever it mixes with in the water (some rugged diesel engine maybe?), a pump, a tank to have the ability to move through clean water, an electric generator to power the circuitry, a battery as well (for starting the motor for instance). It's going to be heavy and complicated, more prone to failure, and harder to keep afloat. And definitely more expensive. And it'll still need to burn oil anyway, because it must collect more than it needs for itself (otherwise it wouldn't go anywhere), but that means the tank will become full at some point.

  5. Wow! by ironnation · · Score: 5, Funny

    SeaWow holds twenty times its weight in liquid, doesn't drip, doesn't make a mess, you burn it off. Made by MIT, you know MIT makes good stuff. Okay, here's some oil stains. Not only is that damage going to be on top, there's your plumes underneath, that's gonna get into your sand, see that. Now we're gonna do this in real time, look at this, it goes on a spill, I don't even have to control it, it just does the work. You following me, camera guy? It acts like a vacuum. SeaWow -- you'll be saying WOW every time. And if you call right now, cause you know we can't do this all day, you get 4999 more SeaWows, that'll clear up a spill in a month. Here's how to order!

  6. Harmless? Not likely... by 93+Escort+Wagon · · Score: 3, Funny

    Let's see... they're tiny robots, they consume raw materials...

    Mark my words - pretty soon some bright lab jockey will come up with the idea of giving them the ability to build more of themselves using those raw materials. And we all know what'll happen next.

    --
    #DeleteChrome