Cottoning on
May 30, 2013
The Economist - OIL and water do not mix. Allegedly. But try telling that to the clean-up team after an accident at sea involving a tanker or an oil rig. Getting the oil out of the water is awkward, expensive and often involves chemical dispersants. A better approach would be to soak it up using an absorbant solid—in effect, wiping the sea clean with a rag. And that is what Seshadri Ramkumar and Vinitkumar Singh, of Texas Tech University, in Lubbock, hope to do, almost literally. Their plan is to absorb spilled oil with cotton.
tags : Texas Tech in the News