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.
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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 video narrator mentioned several other things, including radioactive elements and, I believe, arsenic (among other things,… and I’m not going to watch it again). Such claims always set off my BS-meter. While some facets of the concept may be valid, there are a lot of concerns. For example, take the “drone boat:” Anthony already noted concern about the power requirements. But consider also the storage requirements, as blanket material strength required. Hypothetically, if the material holds up to 150X its own weight, that means you also have to be able to tow that material around as it absorbs oil up to it’s maximum capacity, plus temporarily store (and transport) and then offload all that oil…somehow. There are also possible conflicting claims about how many times the material could be reused (in one place I think it said “many” but in another “several”). Sheathing or otherwise reinforcing the absorbent material blanket may interfere with its recycling and/or disposal.
The sheet or “cylindrical” structure would need to be exceptionally strong for many real-world applications — I am, BTW, both a Civil/Environmental Engineer, and an emergency responder, a HazMat Technician. Situations such as the rollup/rollout & “drone boat” concept or the twin motor craft towing a loop of the material could induce large-scale stress. Inland, where I live, setting up booms across streams and rivers is fraught with difficulty because of the forces imposed by the water’s flow (and often by inappropriate installation that tends to maximize those applied forces).
Being able to pick up something like this without the oil leaking back out would be great, especially if it could be easily processed and reused at the site. Klipstein (Dec 29 at 2:05 pm) & Francisco (Dec 29 at 2:41 pm) touch on this as well in their comments. What works in a pool or a bath will not necessarily work in a fast-moving stream, in a remote part of the Midwest (or other inland areas) with limited access to the stream bank to stage and deploy equipment. Another case of “real world observations trumping lab and model results.
In the real world, we have to deal with poor access to the area of the spill and heavy equipment that often has to be lugged in by hand, a highly limited quantity of immediately deployable resources, the occasional cleanup contractor working to maximize volume collected (regardless of oil content) and hours worked (i.e., his fee), the spiller too often focused on media relations and trying to contain the liabilities and lawsuits being filed by overzealous plaintiffs attorneys, regulators who are focused more on filing charges related to environmental laws, and myriad other issues. “… [O]il spills [that] amount to mishandling bilge water…” are situations NOT the ones typically picked up by the MSM and the regulatory herd. That would be “among other things.”
Kirk c, thanks for picking up the additional details on how may times it can (might) be reused; 15-20 is not what I would consider “many” for a material with this kind of hoped-for application. (I’m thinking “many” would be on the order of >50.) Still, anything that can be reused is good, but is dependent on having a system handy for processing the blankets. Again, an issue of logistics for field-deployable systems.
Leonard Weinstein (December 29, 2013 at 8:06 pm): your idea might work fine in still, calm water with an isolated spill, but not in a stream or river of limited width or where there is a flow rate of any significance. Too often on streams (in flow situations) oil builds up along the boom to a degree and then start to slip under the booming system as the oil’s depth exceeds what the boom can effectively contain. This could also be a problem for your proposed solution in a still, calm environment if the oil is not removed quickly enough. This situation is also complicated further when the spill is not halted yet and much additional material — “oil’ — continues to be discharged into the waterway. Also in a stream, I suspect your loop would tend to flatten out in the downstream direction drastically reducing its effectiveness. In any case, a major challenge is always to collect the material out of the environment as quickly as possible, ideally in as small a volume as possible (hauling slightly contaminated water costs a great deal). If your system is intended exclusively for lakes and oceans, then my criticism is undeserved, but your comments left that unclear and as I am trying to spend most of my time with family today, I have not been able to make time to read your proposal.
This material is likely an exfoliated graphite (with grandiose marketing claims added). This material is reported in the literature as being highly effective (see Journal of Hazardous Materials). The exfoliated graphite was more effective (and less expensive) than activated carbon. Makes sense – a porous carbonaceous material with a more expansive pore structure than GAC would be more suited to trapping oil.
PD Sullivan, Ph.D., P.E.
Environmental Engineer
Isn’t hair a reasonable binding agent? this reminds me of the story about NASA spending billions on zero gravity pen when the “clever russians” simply used a biro.
P.S. What’s the difference between this material and graphene? Anyone?
Hi Wu,
there is quite a big difference with graphene. Mainly is that the product has higher specific surface area, around 3200 m2/g, but the main difference is in the pore size distribution. I have some scientific papers and other material but do not now how to publish here. The slide number 15 of this presentation show and explain the main differences with graphene, expanded graphite or other materials classified like graphene nanoplatelets:
http://www.slideshare.net/Innasmat/sa-envitech-corporate-presentation-2013
Thanks
Dr.WU
Quite right!
Simply a sack of sawdust or milled bark should allways be kept ready and at hand, for the case of oil- or oil paint- spills in the home and elsewhere. It is the best and cheapest there is, an it can simply be burnt, or composted with some chalk and sand and clay.
When mushroms and vegetation and rainworms grow on it again, the problem is settled.
thus avoid obscure chlorinated hydrocarbons and “syntetic” oils as far as possible, and make personal campaigns aganist it.