Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

New Sponge Can Soak Up and Release Spilled Oil Hundreds of Times (newscientist.com)

Posted by BeauHD on from the Shamwow dept.

Seth Darling and his colleagues at Argonne National Laboratory in Illinois have created a new material that can absorb up to 90 times its own weight in spilled oil and then be squeezed out like a sponge and reused. This is compared to most commercial products used for soaking up oil, called "sorbents," which act like a paper towel and are only good for a single use. Once the sorbents are used, they get incinerated along with the oil. New Scientist reports: The oil sponge consists of a simple foam made of polyurethane or polyimide plastics and coated with "oil-loving" silane molecules with a sweet spot for capturing oil. Too little chemical attraction would render the sponge useless as an absorber, whereas too much would mean the oil could not be released. In laboratory tests, the researchers found that when engineered with just the right amount of silane, their foam could repeatedly soak up and release oil with no significant changes in capacity. But to determine whether this material could help sort out a big spill in marine waters, they needed to perform a special large-scale test. To do this, the team made an array of square pads of the sponge material measuring around 6 square meters. "We made a lot of the foam, and then these pieces of foam were placed inside mesh bags -- basically laundry bags, with sewn channels to house the foam," Darling says. The researchers suspended their sponge-filled bags from a bridge over a large pool specially designed for practicing emergency responses to oil spills. They then dragged the sponges behind a pipe spewing crude oil to test the material's capability to remove oil from the water. They next sent the sponges through a wringer to remove the oil and then repeated the process, carrying out many tests over multiple days. This so-far unpublished test was conducted in early December at the National Oil Spill Response Research and Renewable Energy Test Facility in Leonardo, New Jersey. Here's a video showing the sponge in action.

22 of 53 comments (clear)

  1. What about hair? by thoughtlover · · Score: 4, Informative

    Years ago I read about someone who stuffed hair (collected from barbers/stylists) into a mesh-like tube that soaked up oil as it floated along the surface of the water... cheap and reusable.

    --
    No sig for you! Come back one year!
    1. Re:What about hair? by Opportunist · · Score: 1

      Careful there. This is the internet. You can rest assured there is some weirdo who gets off on even the strangest shit you could think of.

      On a totally unrelated note, umm, I'm building such a mesh, maybe you should send your pubes to me!

      --
      We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
  2. Why bother by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

    This is slashdot. Oil spills are no big deal. Human effect on the environment is negligible. That oil would have leaked out naturally anyway. Thank you.

    1. Re:Why bother by ghoul · · Score: 1

      Are you saying Humans are not part of the environment? Did we come from space or another dimension? Any human action is natural. Polluting the air with NOX is just as natural as a Lion killing a deer. Whether its desirable is another thing but I find it irritating when people try to say save nature and fuck the humans - Humans are nature.

      --
      **Life is too short to be serious**
  3. Just in time by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

    for the TRUMP energy policies.

    1. Re:Just in time by GLMDesigns · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Pollution is an important consideration. Too much carbon spewing into the environment is a concern. But then so are jobs, the economy, starvation, wars, etc...

      We know that in a short while (20-40 years) non-carbon burning sources of energy will be dominant players. All one needs to do is to look at a graph and witness the exponential growth since the 1970s.

      We need to go from the here-and-now to the near future. Fracking and drilling makes sense here and now. Building a pipeline to bring the oil to the refineries makes sense in the here and now.

      - Not drilling is stupid.
      - Funding religious zealots does not make sense.
      - There is no extra pollution to drilling here as opposed to "there." IMHO there would be less pollution if we drilled here as so many people would be concerned and paying attention.
      - Using trucks and trains to send oil (compared to a pipeline) is stupid.

      People who are opposed to the pipeline are doing so for ideological purposes.

      We need the oil NOW. Better to drill here than Saudi Arabia.

      --
      If you're scared of your govt then you need to further restrict its powers
      Vote 3rd Party in 2016 and beyond
    2. Re:Just in time by dehachel12 · · Score: 1

      if this were true, wouldnt big oil have metioned this already ? They have far more money at stake, and they have a budget that's thousands of times as large as scientists looking into the matter.

    3. Re:Just in time by GLMDesigns · · Score: 2

      Do all you cowardly f**ks who modded me "troll" understand the difference between disagreeing with someone - and shutting them down?


      Pathetic.

      --
      If you're scared of your govt then you need to further restrict its powers
      Vote 3rd Party in 2016 and beyond
  4. Finally! by Opportunist · · Score: 5, Interesting

    A product where we can reuse the precious oil instead of having to consider it lost.

    Yes, I'm dead serious. This is maybe what would make oil companies interested in cleaning up their mess. What's in it for them if they can't use the oil anymore after cleaning up the spill? But if they can still use the oil, their motivation to clean up rises.

    --
    We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
    1. Re:Finally! by Fire_Wraith · · Score: 1

      Even if it's not cheaper than that, it still serves to reduce the net cost of the cleanup of spills, adding to the incentive to pay for the cleanup. It may also provide incentive to get on the cleanup sooner, as the sooner they get on it the more recoverable oil there is.

    2. Re:Finally! by Eloking · · Score: 1

      Even if it's not cheaper than that, it still serves to reduce the net cost of the cleanup of spills, adding to the incentive to pay for the cleanup. It may also provide incentive to get on the cleanup sooner, as the sooner they get on it the more recoverable oil there is.

      Exactly,

      Completely made up number for the example.

      Let's say 1 barril of oil worth 100$

      Pumping 1 barril of oil cost 50$

      Cleaning up 1 barril of oil cost 90$

      Even if pumping is 5 time more profitable than cleaning, it's still profitable and you got all the infrastructure already to get the 100$ from the baril you clean up.

      It's making money and reduce the cost of penality. Win-Win

      But if this sponge is still not profitable, then, clearly on a business point of view, it's a simple equation :

      IF (Cost to clean - Profit from Oil) > Cost penalty from Lawsuit, THEN Don't Clean

      --
      Elok
    3. Re:Finally! by Anubis+IV · · Score: 1

      .... only if it's cheaper than pumping more oil out of the ground

      Not so. They're going to have to pay for the clean up either way, but doing it this way allows them to recover some of those costs. If that helps to push the net cost below what they pay today for cleaning up, that's a win for everyone involved. We get a cleaner environment faster, the ecosystem suffers less damage thanks to the complete removal of the oil (as opposed to the introduction of oil-neutralizing chemicals), the cost of oil doesn't take as much of a hit if the spill affects supply, and the total cost to society is less.

    4. Re:Finally! by Opportunist · · Score: 1

      It's actually easy to get things going here. Shoot the CEO after a month if there isn't any progress in the cleanup. Then continue with the board, one per month, until the spill is cleaned up.

      You will get results quickly. I guarantee you that.

      --
      We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
    5. Re:Finally! by thegarbz · · Score: 1

      Not so. They're going to have to pay for the clean up either way, but doing it this way allows them to recover some of those costs.

      You're still assuming the cost of cleanup, separation, and treating is less than the cost of just dumping it into an incinerator.

    6. Re:Finally! by Anubis+IV · · Score: 1

      Dumping it into an incinerator is still a win compared to the thousands or millions of barrels of oil covering the bed of the Gulf of Mexico that we have today.

      Besides which, the process you described is already pretty much what they already do, since they're having to remove condensation, fracking liquids, or a variety of other materials from the oil anyway. Given that they already have the process in place to do exactly that, I see no reason why they'd just burn it instead.

    7. Re:Finally! by thegarbz · · Score: 1

      Dumping it into an incinerator is still a win compared to the thousands or millions of barrels of oil covering the bed of the Gulf of Mexico that we have today.

      Now you're assuming that we will get the stuff from the bed. Nope, this won't change a drop of oil in the ocean. It will change the number of sorbents in the incinerator which is a net positive for the environment but not necessarily a reduction in oil.

      Besides which, the process you described is already pretty much what they already do, since they're having to remove condensation, fracking liquids, or a variety of other materials from the oil anyway. Given that they already have the process in place to do exactly that, I see no reason why they'd just burn it instead.

      These systems are designed for a specific and narrow range of mixes in mind. You can't simple dump the crap you pick up out of the Gulf into any oily water separator on a large spill. You need to design a treating system and waste system to manage pretty much exactly what is coming in. Many of these systems can't even cope with a minor change in the source of crude oil coming in, let alone a large change in the mix.

  5. Re:Total fraud because Oil is all Natural and Orga by amalcolm · · Score: 1

    We all know oil seeps naturally ... but to say 'without harm' is just nonsense. A tanker of oil in a rivermouth? In rthe middle of a fishery. Even if you care nothing for the environment (cf. your other comments), how about the econimic damage?

    --
    Time for bed, said Zebedee - boing
  6. another version by kqc7011 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Will this work like a oleophilic belt skimmer? Which do a pretty good job for a very reasonable price. And you can set a skimmer to work continuously. Days, week's or months they just keep rotating and removing the oil. There are always uses for different types of oil recovery and this sponge will have its place.

    --
    Passionately Indifferent
    1. Re:another version by guises · · Score: 1

      One presumes that it won't. The summary claims that this is a new thing, reusable sponges like this haven't existed before, so this would have to differ in some respect from an existing product. Do those belts function via a coating, perhaps? One which maybe wears off over time, or contaminates the oil or something?

      I'd hate to think that this wasn't the revolutionary product that the article is claiming. Surely we would never be mislead by the internet.

    2. Re:another version by kqc7011 · · Score: 1

      The belts are generally a flexible plastic with a coating of the oleophilic material, sometime a large rotating drum is used. Skimmers are made small enough to fit into a barrel bung hole, up to fairly large vessels (bigger boats). If you want to see how they work there are lots of videos out there of both small and large skimmers.

      --
      Passionately Indifferent
  7. Other materials by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    This is very cool, and I hope it can enter production soon. That said, how well does it work on other materials? i.e. if an oil spill has already made it to land, can these be used to clean up beaches? What about other flotsam that may be in the area of a spill?

    No matter what, it appears to be better than anything else at the moment, but I'd be interested in how it does outside of a pristine environment.

  8. Those are some crappy paper towels, there by damn_registrars · · Score: 1

    I don't buy any kind of uber fancy paper towels from the store but I can certainly wring them out and reuse them when I am wiping up a big spill in the kitchen or near the table.

    --
    Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.