Indian Scientists create the simple system: Scientists from Indian Institute of Science, Education, and Research (IISER) in Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala have found the solution to remove oil spills from the sea. The Marine disaster is a big problem in most of the countries. No, any technology is invented to solve this issue. This oil spills can pollute the sea water and affect the marine organisms. The best way to remove oil spills is absorption into a separable solid phase.
Our, Indian scientists create the simple, inexpensive and environment-friendly system to eliminate oil spills from the sea. The IISER center has found that congealed oil produced a rigid gel within impregnated cellulose and scooping the particles out is possible.
Kana M Susan and Annamalai Prathap from IISER have invented and tested a simple method. Combining absorption and gelation processes, they tightly bound the oil to a porous matrix and then only scooped the solid particles out of the water. Even full with the oil, the granules did not sink but remained at the surface.
Methods to remove oil spills from the sea:
Scientists chose cellulose as an environment-friendly and porous carrier matrix and impregnated it with a so-called oleo gelator, a second organic compound. This simple step can convert the cellulose into an effective oil absorbing system.
Gelation occurs because the gelator molecules get dissolved in the oily phase, and then they form a three-dimensional fiber network through hydrogen bonding. The oil poured into the sea form a rigid gel. Gelation turns the oil phase into a solid one, which can be simply scooped out. The other advantage of impregnation is that the gelator renders the cellulose matrix hydrophobic. It did not suck in water as naked cellulose does
The scientists wrote in the journal Angewandte Chemie as “Phase-selective oregano gelators are amphiphiles which can congeal oils selectively from a biphasic mixture of oil and water,”
However, it “absorbed all the oil, and the rigid globules are containing the congealed oil could be scooped out after two hours, leaving the clean water,” the researchers said.