MIT's oil-absorbing mesh towel (Photo courtesy of MIT)
Researchers say they’ve created a special
material that could be used to clean up oil spills
someday. Rebecca Williams has more:
Transcript
Researchers say they’ve created a special
material that could be used to clean up oil spills
someday. Rebecca Williams has more:
The researchers say it’s sort of a magic paper towel. It looks and feels like
paper. But it’s actually a membrane made out of really tiny wires woven
together.
It repels water completely but soaks up oil.
Francesco Stellacci is a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
He says the thin membrane can soak up to 20 times its weight in oil.
“We put it on top of a solution that contains both oil and water and the oil gets
absorbed quite readily.”
Stellacci says the material has the potential to help clean up oil spills. But he
says real world conditions are more complicated, so they’ll still need to run
tests outside the lab.
For The Environment Report, I’m Rebecca Williams.