Reusable super sponge for absorbing oil. Free Technical Library News

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Reusable oil absorbing sponge

12.03.2017

Researchers at the Argonne National Laboratory have developed a "sponge" that sucks up 90 times its own weight in oil and can be used up to 100 times.

Oil spill cleanup is complex. There is a set of tools cleaners use to separate oil from water, but they are all slow or expensive, or both. The best way to clear the water of oil is to use a floating absorbent material called a sorbent boom that absorbs the oil. Depending on the material, absorbent boom can absorb from 3 to 70 times its weight.

The problem is that it can only be used once. Once the material absorbs enough oil, it must be removed from the water, which means that a large amount of sorbent material is required to clean up large oil spills.

The new material not only absorbs oil waste better, but it can also be reused. In tests, the "oil sponge" absorbed 90 times its own weight, after which it could simply be squeezed out and used again. Such material could significantly reduce the cost of cleaning up future oil spills.

The sponge is made of polyurethane foam coated with silicic acid, which attracts oil. The ratio of polyurethane and silicon hydrogen must be very accurate: if there is little silicon hydrogen, then the sponge will not absorb oil, and if there is a lot, it cannot be reused. So getting the exact ratio is quite difficult, and therefore such a sponge will be difficult to use in the open ocean, but in calmer coastal areas it is quite possible.

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An eco-friendly way to get vanillin 23.03.2017

Shivaji L. Bhanawase and Ganapati D. Yadav from the Institute of Chemical Technology, India, have developed a new catalyst that will make the synthesis of vanillin much more environmentally friendly than the current method.

The aroma of vanillin is found in hundreds and hundreds of food products, but in the vast majority of cases, synthetic vanillin is used. The fact is that the natural source of vanillin - vanilla beans - are extremely expensive, because vanilla flowers must be pollinated by hand.

On the other hand, the method currently used to synthesize vanillin is not only inefficient, but also leads to the formation of large volumes of waste water, which also needs to be purified.

The catalyst developed by Indian scientists contains easily accessible elements, such as vanillin, silicon and copper, and most importantly, it helps to separate into vanillin from other substances in a container of boiling water. Moreover, the catalyst can be reused at least four times and without loss of efficiency - usually catalysts are supposed to be replaced after the first use. To demonstrate the workability of their concept, the authors produced a small amount of liquid vanillin.

Finally, the new technology does not produce waste water with a very high pH, which would have to be neutralized with hydrochloric acid before being released back into nature.

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