Nanopaper Excels At Cleaning Up Oil Spills
Researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in the U.S. have developed a nanopaper that could be used to clean up future oil spills.
The paper-like membrane repels water but can absorb up to 20 times it’s weight in oil. Even better, the oil can be recovered and the nanopaper can be recycled many times over.
Research leader, Francesco Stellacci, an associate professor in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering, said:
Our material can be left in water a month or two, and when you take it out it’s still dry,
She continued:
But at the same time, if that water contains some hydrophobic contaminants, they will get absorbed.
Oil spills can cause a devastating range of problems for wildlife - most of which lead to death. In fact, a single oil spill can kill thousands of sea birds and marine mammals.
At least 200,000 tons of oil has been spilled into the oceans since 2000, so if this nanotechnology results in faster clean ups, that’s welcome news for the natural environment.
Amazing stuff that nanotechnology!
Now, if only nanotechnology could be used to prevent oil spills altogether…
Tags: marine mammals, nanopaper, nanotechnology, oil spills, sea birds
August 12th, 2012 at 11:35 pm
I posted a message right after the spill in the Gulf, and what I
said was that Obama would let this oil spill go on for a couple of
reasons. The first reason was he wanted this to become a bad situation, but it spiraled out of control and there is no end in
sight. Obama will try to make this a political thing so he can cut
off all drilling and pass his Cap and Trade fiasco.
The second thing is the fact that he hates big oil even though he got the most money from BP, he is finally meeting with the CEO of
BP and he will use this meeting to try and deflect the blame to BP,
but he has waited too long and the continuing spill and the blame lies squarely at his feet, all this meeting will accomplish is a planned photo-op to try and make himself look good.
Obama administration has refused all kinds of help from different
sources, and this will go down in history books as the Obama Spill.