POSTER: Novel Automated Oil Spill Capture and Recovery with Aerogels
Research Mentor: Dr. Osman Karatum
Additional Authors:
Abstract:
The heavy reliance on oil among societies worldwide has created an expansive oil industry. As a result, there have been numerous oil spill events that have resulted in detrimental effects to the environment and human health. While some of these oil spills have allowed for advancements in chemical clean-up methods, there is a general lack of innovation for oil spill management methods throughout the past decade. Therefore, the focus of this project was to include new clean-up technology, a hydrophobic material known as Aerogel, and run it through an oil recovery device that was built to extract the oil in hopes of reusing it. This device was designed as a roller system that the Aerogel could be passed through, thus pressing the oil into a collection container. The purpose of the Aerogel was to use a material that would target only the oil spilled while avoiding the use of any chemicals to decrease the effects on the marine environments. Contact angle data was collected to analyze the hydrophobic quality of the two types of Aerogels used. The mass uptake of each type of aerogel was also calculated to analyze the efficiency of the oil recovery device in extracting the oil.