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Hierarchical Membrane For Cleaning Up Oil Spills
rtoz (2530056) writes Whenever there is a major spill of oil into water, the two tend to mix into a suspension of tiny droplets, called an "emulsion." It is extremely hard to separate them, and they can cause severe damage to ecosystems. Now, MIT researchers have discovered a new, inexpensive way of getting the two fluids apart again. This new approach uses membranes with hierarchical pore structures. The membranes combine a very thin layer of nanopores with a thicker layer of micropores to limit the passage of unwanted material while providing strength sufficient to withstand high pressure and throughput.
Easier to follow Exxon's example and dump tons of dispersant into your oil spill, and watch the globs disappear from plain sight.
Solomon performed experiments showing the effectiveness of the membranes in separating nanoemulsions while maintaining integrity at high pressure. The team used various techniques — including differential scanning calorimetry, dynamic light scattering, and microscopy — to test the separation efficiency, showing more than 99.9 percent separation. Microscopy images show the membrane in operation, with dye added to the water to make the droplets more obvious. Within seconds, an oil-water mixture that is heavily clouded becomes perfectly clear, as the water passes through the membrane, leaving pure oil behind. As shown in the microscope images, Solomon says, “We’re not only getting rid of the droplets you can see, but also smaller ones,” which contribute to the cloudy appearance.
How much oil (weight/weight) can a piece of membrane hold on to? Can the oil be stripped off of the membrane so that the membrane can be reused? If the answers are "less than 1:1" and "no", this might still be useful as a final purification stage after most of the oil has been removed or for situations where you are trying to clear smaller amounts of more toxic materials.
Kevin Costner had a centrifugal separator that was highly efficient, but could not achieve clean enough water to be allowed to help with past oil spills. Mixing his system with this could get the total system efficiency needed to do significant recovery of spilled oil.
Mayonnaise is also one of earth's nastiest substances - it's like the love-child of white phosphorous, Ebola, and that "Leave Brittany Alone" emo guy.
Mayonnaise is also an emulsion. Now my plans can begin in earnest.
The Demon would guard a door letting fast-moving molecules of some gas (or liquid) through, but blocking the slow-moving ones. Thermodynamics will never be the same!
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
Wasn't this issue already solved, there was I believe some competition a few years back after the gulf spill where several designs competed for prize money. One using a simple rig with rotating plastic disks with groves in them blew away the competition and went FAR beyond the requirements of the competition. Sounds like a lot easier & cheaper solution then some kind of nano material.
http://gizmodo.com/5852606/a-4600-gallon-per-minute-oil-skimmer-just-won-the-14-million-x-challenge
They will no longer need to worry about oil spills. Many of those silly, and very expensive 'safety' precautions can now be avoided. Saving costs increases shareholder value.
The only real drawback to this solution seems to be that the membrane's ingredients do not include ground up kittens and babies.
I'll see your senator, and I'll raise you two judges.
isnt this a coaleser?
Left alone these problems have been vanishing according to recent reports. Nature is eating it up. I'm not suggesting spilling more oil, far from it, but rather to not panic quite so much.
I read about this and I wish them well, especially when the membranes start to clog-up with real-ocean dirt and bacteria move in to build a cozy biofilm community.
I just hope I don't hear about them building "The Big Shell" anytime soon.
Now all we have to do is cover the sea floor with this carpet and lift it up whenever there's a need. Perfect!