Carbon Nanotube Sponge Can Absorb Toxic Oils and Solvents up to 180x Its Weight

[n2doc]

by Michael Graham Richard, Ottawa, Canada on 11.10.09
SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY



Is There Anything We CAN'T Do With Carbon Nanotubes?
Cleaning up toxic spills has always been a problem. It's hard, and it's expensive, and you have to be thorough. But things might have just got easier: Scientists from the Peking University and Tsinghua University have created a sponge like no other. It is made of carbon nanotubes - regular carbon atoms arranged in a specific cylindrical shape - and can absorb organic pollutants from the surface of water (such as oil and solvents) up to 180x its weight (!) without absorbing water (see video below to see how light it is). And once its full of toxic liquids, the best part is that you can just wring it and start again.

These new sponges seem to be clearly better than what we're using at the moment:

Current commercial absorbents for oil spill recovery and industrial use tend to be based on cellulose or polypropylene. These materials can absorb only up to 20 times their own weight and are impractical for large spills, where dispersants are used. Dispersants allow the oil to become diluted, but it remains in the water. Other materials based on porous oxide-based materials or other polymers can absorb up to twice as much pollutant per weight, but generally need to be heated to remove the organic material. High-temperature heating is not practical on small scales or on ships, and a clear advantage of a squeezable sponge is that the oil can be readily recovered and reused. For other applications including solvent cleanup, the sponges can be heated to remove the pollutant, without affecting the properties of the sponges.

180 times its weight seems to be the maximum that such a sponge can absorb (it depends on what you're mopping up). The figure for diesel fuel is 143x, and for ethylene glycol its 175x.

more:
http://www.treehugger.com/files/2009/11/carbon-nanotube-sponge-toxic-oil-cleanup-180x-weight.php

[TheWraith]

1. Carbon nanotubes are probably going to be the most revolutionary tech...

...Since the integrated circuit.

[Cirque du So-What]

2. That's great

but I'm dismayed to see that the R&D was done in China. It's just one more way in which they're eating our lunch, and I blame WhistleAss for cutting basic research funding. After all, it's not like Big Oil would fund research on ways to clean up their own damned messes - not after the courts let them off the hook for the Exxon Valdez incident!

[n2doc]

3. Yep. DOE and EPA should be funding this type of research

Both were cut to the bone by * and are still trying to dig out of the problems left behind by his regime, even with 09's spending increases.

[freethought]

4. More good news on Carbon Nanotubes

These nanotubes hold great promise. One problem that researchers worried about was that they were unsure that the material could be produced on an industrial scale. Well, it looks as it they've been able to do that as well and with equipment and techniques that is already available.

Here's a link:

http://www.gizmag.com/industrial-scale-carbon-nanotube-processing/13270/

[phantom power]

5. Heh. We can do almost anything with them... except mass produce them.

:evilgrin:

[Recursion]

6. Just takes a pencil, paper, scotch tape, and some grad students... NT

[phantom power]

7. Hmmm... that's a biz model. Grad students are dirt cheap...

No! I must pummel these thoughts out of my head!

[Recursion]

8. We can actually make a lot of them, with one problem

We can't control their chirality with current techniques, and that's what we need for them to be useful.

[phantom power]

9. Is chirality really the only major problem we have left?

They must have gotten better while I wasn't looking.

[Recursion]

10. No, it's just the biggest one

Nanotubes aren't really my thing, but my semiconductors prof from last semester works with them, so this is just what I remember her talking about.