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Oil spills such as the Deepwater Horizon oil spills have a long lasting, damaging impact on the environment. Since they cannot be cleaned instantaneously and present methods do not have a far reaching effect, researchers around the world are trying to devise suitable methods to accelerate the process. Recently, researchers at Penn State University and Rice University have created solid, spongy blocks from carbon nanotubes that have an astonishing capability of cleaning up large amounts of oil spills in water. This investment in oil research has resulted in the creation of a new material that not only separates oil from sea water but also has the potential use in applications related to the medical and automobile industry. Carbon nanotubes are the width of a human hair and 100 times stronger than steel but one sixth of its weight. When a three dimensional network of these carbon nanotubes was weaved into a macroscale fabric, a spongy block of nanotubes was formed. It was big and thick enough to clean up oil spill as well perform other tasks. However, the cherry on the icing was adding boron, a chemical element that puts kinks and elbows into the nanotubes and enables the formation of covalent bonds to assign the spongy block its robust qualities and complex network. The spongy carbon-nanotube blocks are special as they are superhydrophobic which means they hate water, but on the other hand they are oleophilic, which means they love to absorb oil. When the sponge was dropped on a dish with motor oil floating on water, it instantly soaked it up. The sponge was then burnt to discard the oil and then reused to absorb more oil. Even after tested 11,000 times in the lab, the nanotube sponges remained elastic and continued to absorb oil. Moreover, they are made up of 99 percent air, are excellent conductor of electricity and can be easily manoeuvred with magnets. For these carbon-nanotube blocks to be effective on a commercial scale larger sheets are needed or smaller sheets need to be welded together. These sponge blocks are useful in other applications such as in scaffolds for bone-tissue regeneration and to manufacture robust and light composites for the automobile and plane industries. The research was supported by National Science Foundation, the Air Force Office of Scientific Research, and the Center for Nanophase Materials Science (CNMS) of Oak Ridge National Laboratory. The international team involved in this research includes Mauricio Terrones, a professor of physics and of materials science and engineering at Penn State; Pulickel Ajayan, the Benjamin M. and Mary Greenwood Anderson Professor in Engineering at Rice University; and other The author is an experienced journalist in oil related fields, who regularly writes articles related to oil prices & indexes and crude oil including tips on investment in oil. Please visit oil.com for more details.
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