Oil spills, pantyhose and mushrooms

Sounds idiosyncratic? Yet, there is a connection between the oil spills, pantyhose and mushrooms. You may add bacteria, pet hair and water-repellent ferrous nanoparticles to the list. Although the list compiled by Yuka Yoneda is ten years old, it gives an insight into how simple innovations offer solutions to complex problems. The composite of mushrooms and hair has been said to act as a sponge to sop up oil on water and the technique has been said to be utilized in the Cosco Busan oil spill in 2007. Similarly the combination of pet hair with pantyhose is said to act like a sponge. Hyper-absorbant peat moss is being advocated by Norwegians for its oil-philic properties, and MIT lab has proposed an oil-repulsive nano-particles based intervention for cleaning oil spills. For a research based view on remediation techniques for oil-spills Dave and Ghaly’s paper may still be relevant.

#water #oilspill #innovation #MIT #DalhousieUniversity