Posted on 05/26/2010 11:57:37 AM PDT by slag
As the Gulf Coast continues to experience a "crude awakening" a Texas Tech scientist burns the midnight oil to turn West Texas cotton into the fabric that saves lives.
"My lab focuses on cotton for industrial products where the margin will be higher," says Ramkumar.
Dr. Seshadri Ramkumar has developed a nonwoven cotton-carbon product called fibertect that can absorb 15 grams of oil per one gram of material.
This invention aimed at intervention features a layer of carbon sandwiched between two layers of low-microneer cotton.
While the cotton soaks up liquid the carbon traps carcinogenic vapors produced by oil which can devastate an ecosystem and potentially cause cancer in humans.
"This cotton-carbon technology is able to function two or three times higher than that of what synthetic materials are. It is reusable, even second time, third time, it picks up the oil and it is also biodegradable," says Ramkumar.
Nicknamed Dr. Ram this scientist thinks outside the boll when it comes to cotton.
He's sent his latest findings to BP in hopes of blanketing the Gulf Coast with his innovation.
"This cotton-carbon fibertect will simply float on the surface, suck up the oil instantaneously and then the vapors will be held by the carbon, then all you simply do is just roll that one, ring it or squeeze it to remove the oil and then you reuse it," says Ramkumar.
wood cellulose (aka “pulp”) works great too.
Good ole grass hay will soak up the oil also. But they won’t use it because their buddies won’t make any money on it and it’s too simple.
...just more debris and junk at the source to make more problems.....bomb the dang thing and close it down.
It's not the disaster, it's what can I get out of the disaster.
What makes this system look so good is that it is reusable. Just unroll it out in the water then pull it back in squeeze it out and do it all over again. Plus it is biodegradable and helps out the American farmer.
They should shove an umbrella type apparatus into the BP oil pipe, top first—once inserted, they should spring-open umbrella apparatus to cover the pipe hole that’s in the underwater oil field (oil entry side), thus, preventing oil from being sucked up through the pipe.
Makes more sense than plugging with mud.
(hat tip—my clever spouse!!!!)
Dude, wait, what about really big paper towels?!?!?!
Bounty! The quicker picker upper.
Seriously, though, I hpoe this works...
Wouldn’t something like this also absorb water?
Sham wow!
June is harvest time for wheat in this part of the country and it would be easy to bale the wheat straw if there was a market for it but we grow cotton too.
I wonder about that too....But I want to know how the material will still be safe to biodegrade if it’s sopping with oil?
won’t...go...there
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