Breakthrough or bogus? I ask readers to help sort it out.
Every once in awhile something comes along that gives us a wow factor. This is one of those times.
What you see below is a frame from a video that shows a magnet pulling oil out of that water using a reusable binding agent called NAIMOR. I had to watch this several times, because I kept looking for the “trick”. I couldn’t find any. If there is a trick, it is way better than “Mike’s Nature Trick” because surely this stuff is tricking out nature to do what seems impossible.
This morning, my inbox contained a letter from Dr. Ivano Aglietto, which begins:
Dear Sir,
Through the columns of your esteemed blog I would like to bring to the notice of all the environmental groups, the development of a new eco-friendly nanostructure material for oil spill recovery.
Mind you, from the firehose that is my inbox, I get emails of all sorts every day with all kinds of nutty requests, and this one could have easily gone into the bit bucket, but I can’t quite get over the image of a magnet pulling oil out of the water, since it goes against everything I’ve ever known about the properties of hydrocarbons. At the same time the maxim “if it seems too good to be true, it probably is” comes to mind. I’ll let readers be the judge.
Here is the pitch on Indiegogo:
Environmental oil spill disasters such as the BP’s Deepwater Horizon oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico may recur unexpectedly. The outcome of such disasters are enormous leading to the killing of marine creatures and contamination of natural water streams, storm water systems or even water supplies. We must be ready to confront such turbulences with effective and eco-friendly solutions to minimize the short term or long term issues.
There are many ineffective and costlier conventional technologies for the remedy of oil spills like using of dispersants, oil skimmers, sand barrier berms, oil containment booms, by controlled burning of surface oil, bioremediation and natural degradation.
A cost effective solution RECAM® – REactive Carbon Material, is developed for oil spill recovery but having some limitations in usage because of its structure and features. RECAM® comes in powder form and not effective for excessive usage in oil recovery.
To overcome the issues in RECAM®, a new revolutionary solution NAIMOR® – NAnostructure Innovative Material for Oil Recovery, was proposed. It is a three dimensional, nanostructure carbon material and can be produced in different shapes, dimensions. Highly hydrophobic and can absorb a quantity of oil around 150 times its weight. Light, strong, flexible and can be reused many times without losing its absorption capacity. Campaign video showcases the RECAM® and the new proposed concept NAIMOR® which needs your SUPPORT for becoming a reality.
…
NAIMOR® (NAnostructure Innovative Material for Oil Recovery) is a nanostructure material that can be produced in different shapes and dimensions with an incredible efficiency for oil recovery.
Main Characteristics and Properties
- Can absorb quantity of oil 150 times its weight.
- Inert, made of pure carbon, environmental friendly and no chemicals involved.
- Highly hydrophobic and the absorbed oil does not contain any water.
- Regenerable and can be used several times without producing any wastes.
- It is a three dimensional nanostructure and can be produced in different shapes, dimensions.
- Capable of recovering gallons of oil depending on the shape and dimensions of the carpet.
The video was a bit stereotypical for oil spills, using the same kinds of footage of oil soaked animals that tugs at your heartstrings and are the tools of the enviros to motivate people. But, like the fascinating magnetic recovery, then the guy drinks the water that has been cleaned of oil. It has all the makings of a snake oil scam, OTOH it has all the makings of a breakthrough done independently on a shoestring. We have many readers far more familiar with oil recovery than I, perhaps they can help sort out which it is.
Note: the solar panel on the boat can’t possibly provide enough power to do the job, so I’m skeptical of the entire claim. The pelican didn’t help either.
==============================================================
Since running an electromagnet over the ocean would be rather energy intensive and probably a bit slow on recovery, the simple solution proposed is to manufacture the stuff into carpets, put the carpets on the oil spill, pull them in, and then squeeze the oil out of the carpets using a roller, like the old ringer/roller washing machines would squeeze water out of wet clothing:
Is this a pie in the sky idea? Is it practical? I have no idea, but for the mere pittance the inventor is asking for, $55,000, it’s probably worth finding out.
More here if you want to help back the project: http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/naimor-nanostructure-innovative-material-for-oil-recovery
Related articles
- Nanotechnology crowdfunding: Nanostructured material for oil spill remediation (w/video) (nanowerk.com)
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The local rag blog here (Vancouver WA. USA) had a artical on Canada expanding and building more oil tanker terminals in BC Canada. Thiis was the first poster and being it is a sales pitch I marked it as spam.
A $55,000 “goal”–really? This whole deal stinks on ice–slick visual distractions to suggest what’s not there. Get enough funders and many $55,000 goals will stack up in a bank account somewhere and then…crickets.
Is that a resarch artical? 😉
The ocean is big, oil spills are thin. I’m skeptical.
Don Mattox
December 29, 2013 at 9:40 am
‘They are called ferrofluids and are iron nanoparticles that are suspended in oil. They are used to keep oil in place and not creep somewhere else.’
You got it! That was the first thought that crossed my mind. NASA originally developed ferrofluid, I believe in the 1960s, but I’m not aware they put it to practical use. Ferrofluid is exactly as described; iron nano particles suspended in oil. And being iron they will respond to magnets, almost like a magnetic fluid – hence the name. I believe some automakers may have experimented with it for shock absorbers. And there’s a Japanese artist who makes gorgeous and mesmerizing moving sculptures (spirals to the gods) using the substance. I wish I could remember her name but a google search for ‘ferrofluid sculpture’ might reveal it.
If someone wants, they can buy a bottle of water with it, along with a magnet, which you can run around the outside of the bottle and watch the ferrofluid assume neat, spikey shapes. The cost for the gadget: about $25.00. Which is a heckuvalot cheaper than the $55,000.00 this guy wants. Of course, don’t be surprised if our superiors in the capitals around the world (Washington, D.C. most definitely included) cough up significant sums of money to dole out to this ‘inventor’ to pursue his research.
Alan Robertson says:
December 29, 2013 at 9:21 am
> Here’s a Forbes magazine article discussing Rossi’s E-cat.
> disclaimer: I know nothing about either Rossi’s device or the subject of this thread.
Things are moving along at product development pace. Nothing worth writing a new post about. Keep up with current affairs at http://www.e-catworld.com/ . Stable operation at 1,100 Celsius. Next 3rd-party review after March.
Apologies for the OT comment but he started it. 🙂
This calls into mind the Sirofloc process, which can be used for removing fine material from water that might otherwise be difficult to treat.
You do not need iron, only powdered magnetite, which is readily available from some iron ore mining operations. After treatment of the contaminated water the flocculated magnetite particles are recovered using permanent magnet barrel separators for reuse.
This seems feasible for oil spills too, with a catch.
The catch is it will be very very very expensive. That was the case with Sirofloc we found in practice. Other conventional methods were much cheaper and just as effective.
Recovering and recycling something, like oily magnetite powder, is only sensible if it is cost effective. For oil spills the best treatment is still to let the naturally occurring humble oil eating bacteria do their job.
Don’t piss your money away on oil-spill nonsense; we don’t even need oil any more:
http://tinyurl.com/bmnj9fa
It can’t be a scam – look at the source. Find an investment banker in this country and bet the farm!
For the sardonically challenged: /sarc
Silly me, I made a big mistake in my following comment:
‘Tom J on December 29, 2013
11:45 am
Of course, don’t be surprised if our superiors in the capitals around the world (Washington, D.C. most definitely included) cough up significant sums of money to dole out to this ‘inventor’ to pursue his research.’
I forgot to add one word in the foregoing sentence: ‘taxpayer.’ So it should read:…cough up significant sums of taxpayer money to dole out…
Sorry.
Tom J says:
December 29, 2013 at 11:45 am
A company in Nashua NH, Ferrofluidics, commercialized it, but never really thrived. They invited me for a job interview, neat place, and while I wasn’t interested, I linked them up with my employer to experiment with a rotational damper they had. Loudspeaker companies use(d) ferrofludics for cooling and damping voice coils, a fine concept for them.
The company self destructed over a stock scheme, see http://www.nytimes.com/1997/11/01/business/an-indictment-on-ferrofluidics.html
They seem to carry on as a different company, see https://www.ferrotec.com/ though it looks like not all their products use ferrofluids.
RECAM was the iron based system, using an electromagnet to pick it up after it becomes saturated with oil. NAIMOR appears to be a purely mechanical system.
Both are likely to only be reusable when used with refined products or light non-asphaltic and non-paraffinic oils to avoid clogging the pores. The best use would probably be for dealing with small spills around product export terminals, not major crude spills.
In the early 80’s in a large jet engine factory, we had a sales geek demonstrate a revolutionary new cutting fluid in a machine that was working with nothing but the high temp cobalt nickel alloys. The load meters for the spindle decreased 25%, the tool life increased about 30-35%, and tool changes cut by about a third. It was all sunshine and roses for about 3 weeks, when it came time to remove a large steel fixture from the cast iron table of this particular machine center. The hold-down bolts in the t-slots had to be broken off because they would no longer turn. The fixture itself had to be pounded with sledge hammers until it finally broke loose. Super invasive rust had seriously attacked between mating surfaces, and the weirdest molds in the world was growing in the coolant tanks. Rust inhibitors ruined the cutting ability of the fluid, as did the biocides. It went away, never to be heard from again. I think I’d want to know a great deal more before even considering investing.
Dr Luke Warmist
That material looks severely interesting.
Just think of turning all those peculiar and unexpected side effects into something that can be used and really relied on, including sabotage.
Iron is really one of my favourite metals and chemical elements. Iron is furter one of the vital elements. No life in the universe without iron. Iron is further a central element, both in the planets and in the periodic table, and thus should be so also to our understanding.
One can do and make a lot of peculiar things with iron.
Use a mixture of 1:1 stinky diesel oil and sunflower oil and spray it on, wherever you see red rust, Fe+++.
The iron nails in the viking ships have kept buried underground for 1000 years. Most probably due to the combination of tannic acid in the oakwood and a mixture of tar and maybe seal or whale- or codliver oil for painting. The omega 3. The same recepy works wonders under the car.
Other recepies are irresponsible and immoral when it comes to iron.
I use natural tannic acid extracted from bark (Alnus incana) by ammonia, for ink. The iron nibs do not rust at all, they keep absolutely clean.
You never see red rust under a diesel- drip at sea. Diesel, as stinky as possible, protects iron.
The reason why you can loosen rusty bolts by heating is that FeO(OH) . nH2O = red rust. H2O then evaporates by heating. If Fe+++ is bound and stabilized by a reducing agent like Omega 3 or tannic acid, then Metallic iron is not rusting under it. A high molecular and fast hardening oil will not have that effect.
If you want to get quickly rid of iron, your car for instance, then spray it with Mg++ and Ca++ salt solutions, that will allways keep it moist. Then use a proper car shampoo surfactant that makes this creep into any tiny crack. Set further on O2 and on iron & sulphur bacteriæ, on Early life. because they love metallic iron.
Titanic is half eaten allready. What about your car?
Daedalus clipped: “pure carbon, environmental friendly”.
This is not a scam on the level of “CO2 is the control for Earth’s temperature”, or the “Hockey Stick”, I think, just creative engineering in need of management review (or investor).
@ric werme. The CEO of Ferrofluidics was sentenced to 8 years in jail. Never a good sign.
http://www.sec.gov/litigation/litreleases/lr16584.htm
For $380 you can be in Miami and Los Angeles simultaneously:
http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/naimor-nanostructure-innovative-material-for-oil-recovery
I’ve Googled for the event, and there appears to be none in either location. Also, the phrase “preserving the environment with nanotechnology” appears on NAIMOR’s site only.
Not encouraging
I wonder what would happen if you dipped a sizeable electromagnet into the ocean? Reminds me of what an engineering friend who was developing a high current transmitter said. “There was this strange crackling sound, followed by a loud boom. Then the room stank like burnt carbon. I suspected the transmitter had stopped working.”
I always found my engineering friend to be more of an astute observer than designer of circuitry.
Hmmmmm… kinda looks like SIGMA-ALDRICH part #697745aldrich, cobalt, carbon coated magnetic, nano-powder and 699624aldrich, Carbon, mesoporous, nanopowder, graphitized.
at 92$ for 500mg its kind of expensive
look at the RECAM brochures and the SIGMA-ALDRICH site…
Leonard Weinstein said in part on December 29, 2013 at 10:45 am:
“I developed a method to clean up vey large slicks, completely and very quickly, and sent it everywhere I could, but no one showed interest. The idea is at: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1cVFurqCxQgo64DzzSn0hcKYlsjvjLUZG5Dq5bid9BGE/edit?usp=sharing
and simply uses the fact that oil floats on water and that a enclosed boom pulled in can enclose and concentrate a hugh area quickly. If anyone can tell me why this is not a complete and practical solution to spills like the Gulf one, please reply.”
This is a tactic that has already been used for cleaning up oil spills on water. However, it is incomplete. Many petroleums have higher-density compounds that have density near or above that of water, such as many aromatic hydrocarbons. If the petroleum that was spilled has its higher density compounds being disproportionately less volatile ones, then a slick can change into an area of intermittently floating tarballs. This happened with the BP disaster in the Gulf of Mexico.
The best way to destroy oil is to let bacteria eat it.
Boat owners fight a continuous battle with bacteria which eat hydrocarbons, I had to add some terrifyingly powerful biocide toxins to my fuel tank on a regular basis, to stop the engine filter clogging up with biological scum.
https://www.google.com.au/search?q=diesel+bug
The reason diesel bug is so difficult to control, is it is everywhere, particularly in warm water. The diesel bug fungus and bacteria spores contaminate all hydrocarbons which are exposed to air near the sea. No hydrocarbon is safe.
Eric,
The battle is not limited to boat owners. Oilfield biocides are the new hot topic in biotechnology. There is hope that when a good one is developed, oil companies will be able to switch from expensive stainless pipes to something more affordable. As things stand, it is an uphill battle. Life found in oilfields and further down the line in processing systems has a taste for iron as well as carbohydrates.
I tried reading through all posts to make sure I am not repeating any. I think I am not, but it is always possible.
This type of technology is not only not groundbreaking but it has been used in the past and is currently in use, extensively. Except for the magnetic part, but for an actual oil spill, I think needless to mention the huge downfalls of the power requirements and logistics of a powder floating in moving waters.
I have, personally, used booms with rolls of foam (similar to your car’s seat stuffing) that can absorb 80-100 times their weight in oil…. but here is the first question, which oil?
Crude spilled in the ocean water, after a quick heartbeats (ok, several hours but in boat times quick) dehydrates, oxidizes and looses most of the light ends. It becomes thick and heavy. Good luck trying to absorb 80 time the weight of anything with that oil.
If the spill is in a river, slow moving river, you might stand a chance, if it is fast moving water, good luck.
We cleaned the mangroves in Mexico (remember that spill from Pemex, much larger than BP’s but the internet was not nearly as strong as it is now, plus Pemex did a good job shutting people down? Look up Ixtoc) and let me tell you, try to sneak booms or any stuff through that vegetation, you are out of luck. Yeah, we also pretended to hand clean leaves and rocks, but it was really for show as it was most inefficient. And that is not the only spill I have worked on with these types of absorbants but of course, with a car analogy, every manufacturer claims to give you a superb milage; when you drive real consumption is not quite as good, is it?
I worked in N. Alberta on an old orphan well that had casing cracks and was spilling about 100bbl/d oily water into the Peace river. The greenies could not detect the plume 100m from the source in the river.
In short, these technologies are quite effective if there is a really quick reaction, within a confined area and the logistics allow for concealing the spill (let’s not talk about oils that actually sink in water <20ºC). They have been around for quite some time and some of those foams are pretty cheap. The expensive part is deploying them, recovering them, squeezing the oil out and re-deploying.
Lets not forget oil degrades, the BP Horizon did not quite damage land and ecosystems as hoped… er… claimed at the beginning of the disaster, now did it?
Oh, activated carbon can also do the trick.
Nah, I wouldn't bet the farm or the chicken coop on this. It does probably work, but 150 times it's weight in oil? Doubtful in real life. Magnetic properties? Useless on full scale environmental emergencies. Remote controlled boats? Why, I trust more a captain following the spill. Running a boat ON TOP of the spill? Yeah, on a computer
A scam is a premeditated attempt to deceive. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confidence_trick
An example of what I am talking about is “Oil from Turkey Guts”. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermal_depolymerization The process worked. Oil was produced and sold on a commercial scale but the company went bankrupt anyway. It turned out that they had to pay for the turkey guts rather than being paid to dispose of them. Oops! Even so, if it weren’t for shale gas and oil, the price of oil might be high enough for the company to survive.
My point was that just because you produce a working technology, it doesn’t mean you are out of the woods. Even the most honest inventor/entrepreneur can be blindsided by harsh reality.
To clarify….This project has nothing to do with magnetic oil recovery.
The guy is trying to raise $55,000 mostly so he can build himself a little boat. Apparently, the cost of making the “magic carpet”. Is relatively “low” . Not sure what that means in actual dollars/m^2 but the nanorug is still in the concept stage so no guarantees or estimates presented.
He is using $15,000 of the funds to make some trial production run of the stuff. Seems to me , this is where you should start before you bother with the boat. Maybe this just makes a bunch of 2″ squares he can send out as investor samples.
According to his “projections” he can recover about 3 barrels of crude for each square meter of rug he makes. (assuming he gets the max rated 15 to 20 life cycle “squeezes” out of it). Then, hopefully he can recycle the worn out sheets into more new product.
Perhaps he could use sequestered co2 carbon conversion to make his super pads…. The ultimate circular irony for cleaning up big oil…
Based on the usage of his funding I would decline to invest at this point. But….for 40 bucks of investment you do get a hat…..
Seems to me that regardless of any magnetic properties, if you have a hydrophobic material that you can make as a sponge, and can float, then that’s all you need for this thing to work. If it soaks up enough oil to wring out, that’s great. You get less capillary action with a non-polar fluid like oil, so the sponge won’t work as well as the dish scrubby in my kitchen sink, but this whole thing might be valid.
Anyway, my check’s in the mail.
BTL@T – This, and many similar technologies, is non-scalable to real world situations. Actual recovery is sporadic throughout the water column. Too specialized a technology for first responders to employ and ineffective when deployed late or in sea states greater then 2. Deployment/recovery near shore and in areas with aquatic plants is problematics for the collateral damage done to the environment. Therefore, it is not a viable tool for a response to a significant sized oil spill.
Here is a bit of information on Dr. Ivano Aglietto:
http://www.zoominfo.com/s/#!search/profile/company?companyId=345599402&targetid=profile
My guess is that this startup company has developed a new remediation approach with some promise, and the fact that it sounds “odd” could be due to translation into English, and/or their desire to mask some of the trade secret/intellectual property by not disclosing things completely.
This is most usually seen in the nascent “algae industries,” where companies are vying to develop technologies to take advantage of the fact that, under certain growing conditions, freshwater microalgae produce as much as 50% of their cell mass as hydrocarbons. My own company has innovations in this space, we pretty much keep our yaps shut.
I’m familiar with other magnetic water/wastewater processes, mostly from Russia. This “magnetic nanotech” process would seem to have a scale-up/economic challenge more than anything, as oil spill recovery is a fairly mature industry, relying upon inexpensive boom materials, flotation processes, and even dispersants (Deepwater Horizon incident). I wish Dr. Aglietto the best of luck.