China's innovative solution to tackling toxic and damaging oil spills: ‘urgent priority'
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Often the result of burst pipelines or damage to oil rigs and
ships , oil spills can take months or years to clean up, while exposing people to toxic compounds and harming
wildlife
Various methods are deployed to clean up oil spills, including the use of absorbent materials to soak up oil to separate it from water.
Bio-based absorbents, such as cotton and fruit peels, are cost-effective and environmentally friendly materials, but they often have low absorption capacity, limited water repellent properties and poor reusability.
'This study used natural porous sphagnum moss as a raw material to develop a novel, economical, efficient, and easily recoverable adsorbent via surface modification,' the team said in a paper published in the peer-reviewed journal Scientific Reports on April 6.
An oil spill in the Caple River, Ecuador, occurred in March after a damaged pipeline polluted several rivers and left hundreds of thousands of people without drinking water. Photo: AFP
The oil absorbent, developed by researchers from Guizhou Education University, was made by treating the abundant plant material sphagnum moss with chemicals to alter its properties, resulting in an oil absorption capacity that outperformed conventional bio-based absorbents.
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