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Easy-To-Clean Membrane Separates Oil From Water
ckwu writes: A steel mesh with a novel self-cleaning coating can separate oil and water, easily lifting oil from an oil-water mixture and leaving the water behind. Unlike existing oil-water separation membranes, if the coated mesh gets contaminated with oil, it can be simply rinsed off with water and reused, without needing to be cleaned with detergents. The team was able to use the mesh to lift crude oil from a crude oil-seawater mixture, showcasing the feasibility of oil-spill cleanup. The membrane could also be used to treat oily wastewater and as a protective barrier in industrial sewer outlets to avoid oil discharge.
I bet a lot of people who have contaminated well water thanks to fracking are going to love this!
Right, it doesn't make sense unless it's used as a filter rather than as a sponge. Which it is.
Don't waste your vote! Vote for whoever you want, unless you live in a swing state it won't matter anyways
This would work if the filter takes out more oil than it requires to wash it off. Oil sticks to polymer, other oil is attracted to the oil skin more than the water and the skin grows. Forced water overcomes the polymer bias. The resultant sludge is then treated like water polluted oil instead.
US law requires that all oil collected by vacuum ships be brought to a processing facility, where 100% of all oil must be removed prior to the water being discharged.
During the Deepwater Horizon disaster, there were serious delays in the US accepting offers of help from the Netherlands and other nations. Most of them came with a price tag, but the Dutch offered three sets of Koseq Rigid Sweeping Arms for free. Because they were only 98% efficient, and they were initially refused.
However, common sense (and desperation) won out in the end, and we started accepting all the offers for free equipment that came in, including the Dutch offer.
Reference article
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The coating lives water and repels oil. Pull it thru an oil-water mix and the water flows thru the holes but the oil doesn't.
Pull it out and it contains a puddle of oil. Rinse it with a little water and the oil comes right off, ready for reuse.
This isn't that uncommon in these types of filters. What is new is that this works dry. Other filters of this type have to be thoroughly wet before they work. This one is oleophobic when dry as well. So no fancy prep to get it to work.
Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.
Aparently you have no idea what a filter is. Just reverse the flow and all the filtered material comes back out.
Whooo Spooky Magic!