Separation of Oil/Water Mix

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Reference #: 01192 The University of South Carolina is offering licensing opportunities a method of synthesizing scalable nanomaterials for oil spill remediation. Background: Since oil spills and other related contamination can have catastrophic environmental consequences and current removal methods are limited, an improved method for removal of oil is urgently required. Traditional mechanical removal methods such as booms, skimmers, and suctions pumps have low removal efficiency and are effective only for thick oil slicks during the initial stage of an oil spill. For low concentrations of oil indicated by sheens less than 50μm thick, various sorbent materials such as membranes, chemical dispersants, and polymer based foam absorbents are used for oil water separation. Although widely applied, these techniques are often impractical due to limitations such as high operational cost and time, low adsorption efficiency, and environmental constraints. Invention Description: The subject invention utilizes polymer coated magnetic iron oxide nanomaterials to remove oil from oil-water. Potential Applications: Remediation of oil Advantages and Benefits: The synthesized nanomaterials showed the excellent oil removal efficiency and structural properties and can be scaled-up for in-situ oil remediation from the oil spills. Development: Oil separation experiment indicated almost 100% removal efficiency of oil from both natural sea-water conditions.