POLLUTION

IIT Guwahati Researchers Develop Cotton that Selectively Absorbs Oil; Helpful to Manage Marine Oil Spills

Representational image. (NOAA) — Representational image.
(NOAA)

To address the environmental crisis caused by marine oil spills, the researchers at the Indian Institute of Technology, Guwahati, have developed a highly porous and water repellent superhydrophobic cotton composite material that can selectively absorb oil from the oil-water mixture.

The material containing Metal-Organic Framework (MOF) has excellent capabilities of selective separation of oil from oil-water mixtures, with the separation efficiency lying between 95% and 98%, irrespective of the chemical composition and density of the oil.

The MOF is a class of compounds containing metal ions coordinated with organic ligands to form 3D structures. Their unique feature is that they are often highly porous materials that act like sponges.

Besides, the MOF composite can also absorb large volumes of oil and can be reused a minimum of ten times so that the sorbents can provide more recovery of the spilt oil.

Oil leakage and oil spill accidents frequently happen during offshore oil exploitation and oil transportation in the petroleum industry. The severe water contamination threatens the health of humans as well as other living species. Therefore, the treatment of industrial oily wastewater and the separation of oil spills from water have become challenging worldwide.

Explaining the motive of the research, Shyam P. Biswas, an associate professor at the Department of Chemistry, IIT-G, who led the team of researchers, said that their goal was to develop a new material that could be synthesised easily besides being cost-effective.

"We have grown our new MOF material on the surface of medical cotton, which is environment-friendly and cost-effective. Such low-cost material will reduce the production cost of the material for large-scale industrial synthesis for real applications, compared to the currently available materials in the market," Biswas said.

The researchers initially developed a superhydrophobic MOF that can repel the water and float on the water surface. Then, they grew the same MOF on the surface of medical cotton. It was observed that the medial cotton changes from hydrophilic to superhydrophobic material and could float on the water surface.

The team used motor oil, kerosene and gasoline in this study to investigate the real-life potential of the material for oil-spill clean-up. The research team has also demonstrated the separation of oil from the oil-water mixture by simple gravity-directed filtration and a collection of underwater oil against gravity.

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The above article has been published from a wire agency with minimal modifications to the headline and text.

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