Oil spillsRaw cotton offers new, ecologically friendly way to clean up oil spills
The Deepwater Horizon disaster highlighted the need for better ways of cleaning up oil spills. A new solution addresses this need. It is based on the finding that unprocessed, raw cotton may be an ideal, ecologically friendly answer, with an amazing ability to sop up oil.
Raw cotton displays great potential as oil spill absorbent // Source: almogaz.com
The Deepwater Horizon disaster highlighted the need for better ways of cleaning up oil spills.
A new solution addresses this need. It is based on the finding that unprocessed, raw cotton may be an ideal, ecologically friendly answer, with an amazing ability to sop up oil.
An American Chemical Society (ACS) release notes that the report, which includes some of the first scientific data on unprocessed, raw cotton’s use in crude oil spills, appears in ACS’ journal Industrial & Engineering Chemistry Research.
Seshadri Ramkumar, Ph.D., explains that a particular need exists for oil-spill sorbents which are abundantly available at relatively low cost, and are sustainable and biodegradable. There have been extensive studies on fibers such as barley straw, kapok, and wool — but there are also big gaps in knowledge about their basic crude oil-uptake mechanisms and no data on unprocessed raw cotton.
Ramkumar, an associate professor at Texas Tech University and lead author of the paper, says: “My team decided to fill those gaps with research on the oil sorption properties of low micronaire cotton, a form of unprocessed cotton with relatively less commercial value.”
They report that each pound of the material has the ability to sop up and hold more than thirty pounds of crude oil.
“The cotton fibers take up oil in multiple ways, including both absorption and adsorption (in which oil sticks to the outer surface of the cotton fiber).”
In the paper, the scientists say that in contrast to synthetic sorbents, raw cotton has a high crude oil sorption capacity and a positive environmental footprint. That makes it an ecologically friendly sorbent for oil spill cleanups.
— Read more in Vinitkumar Singh et al., “Crude Oil Sorption by Raw Cotton,” Industrial & Engineering Chemistry Research 52, no. 18 (25 April 2013): 6277-81 (DOI: 10.1021/ie4005942); listen to podcast here.
