Schematic illustration of induction-heating-assisted GSSM roller arrays and design for reversible interfacial process. The continuous clean-up and recovery of large-scale viscous oil spills are demonstrated. Credit: Nature Sustainability (2023). DOI: 10.1038/s41893-023-01217-2
To
combat the extreme environmental toll of major oil spills, researchers at The
University of Texas at Austin have created a technology that could
significantly improve cleanup capabilities compared with current methods.
The new technology uses a dual-layer
mesh roller coupled with an induction heating technique, with material properties that allow it to separate oil from water and
then remove that oil from the ocean with high efficiency and throughput. In
experiments, the researchers showed the potential to retrieve up to 1,400
kilograms of viscous oil per square meter per hour, which is about 10 times
better than the way oil is cleaned up today.
"When you have a widespread oil
spill in the ocean, it slowly diffuses into the water, so how quickly and
efficiently you can retrieve the oil has a major impact on the marine environment," said Guihua Yu, a professor of materials
science in the Cockrell School of Engineering's Walker Department of Mechanical
Engineering and Texas Materials Institute.
The findings are published in Nature
Sustainability.
In practice, the rollers could be built
to different sizes to deal with oil spills. Boats would pull them across a spill area, where
they could complete cleanup operations in a day or two, compared with the
weekslong efforts that current techniques require.
Superhydrophobic and oleophilic properties of the
GSSM. Credit: Nature Sustainability (2023). DOI:
10.1038/s41893-023-01217-2
Oil's viscous nature makes it
challenging to separate from water. The gel-coated mesh roller can selectively adhere oil
at the interface of the cold seawater on the bottom side and separate viscous
oil/water mixtures at the top side of the roller. Then, a device in between the
two layers captures the now-separated oil.
The
researchers applied non-contact induction heating to the top layer of the
roller to supercharge the reaction that separates oil from water. In
experiments, the researchers achieved over 99% oil-water separation efficiency.
That means the collected oil could also be recycled and reused.
Yu's research has touched on other areas of sustainability, such as generating gels that can pull water from the air and significant improvements to soil and farming practices. He said he was inspired to pursue this research by the Deepwater Horizon spill. The 2010 incident off the Gulf Coast was the largest U.S. oil spill in history, with more than 100 million gallons of oil leaked, forever altering the ecosystem there. Crews tried different ways to clean up the spill, but the impact remains present to this day, with some estimates indicating only about a quarter of the oil was recovered.
A
graphic representation of a boat pulling a roller across a spill area. Credit:
University of Texas at Austin
Non-contact
induction heating applied to the roller’s top layer supercharges the reaction
that separates oil from water. Credit: University of Texas at Austin
This
got Yu thinking about oil spill cleanup technology. He looked at commonly used
cleanup methods, such as skimmers, and what he found was a major need for a
modernized way to efficiently pull oil out of water with
much higher throughput.
"Most of the methods in use today
rely on decades-old technology," Yu said. "I just thought we should
be able to do better than that."
Up next, the researchers will focus on scaling the technology. They are open to working with industrial partners on scaling and field tests.
by Nat Levy, University of Texas at Austin
Source: Oil-capturing technology offers 10x improvement cleaning up hazardous spills (techxplore.com)
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