Cleaning of Oil spills using gels

What is it about?

Marine oil-spill is a major environmental problem affecting not only humans but also other life forms. The existing methods to clean marine oil spills are not efficient. In this paper, we demonstrated that sugar based gels can be used to congeal oil selectively from a mixture of oil and water. This method has the potential to be developed as an effective way to tackle marine oil spills. Also we have shown that it can be sprayed so that aerial spray can be adopted in the real sea scenario.

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Why is it important?

It is a green method to tackle oil spills. The use of sugar based material makes it an environmental friendly method. Also it is very cheap and can be made in a single step process. hence it is economically viable too.