The cloth, seen above, developed by Assistant Professor Di Gao of the Department of Chemical and Petroleum Engineering at the University of Pittsburgh easily separates oil from water in the lab. How? Look below:
It’s a simple cotton cloth that’s been coated in a chemical polymer that’s both hydrophilic (it bonds with the hydrogen molecules in water) and oleophobic (oil-repelling). What’s that mean? It can filter oil out of water easily, over and over again. Just look at the video above, where Gulf seawater mixed with oil is filtered out quickly and painlessly.
Now how to apply this to real world parameters. That’s the next question.
via dvice
