Tuesday, January 24, 2012

Oil Spill Cleanup High Tech Soap | BBCNews





Magnetic soap could help in oil spill clean-ups

This means the soap and the materials that it dissolves can be removed easily by applying a magnetic field.

Experts say that with further development, it could find applications in cleaning up oil spills and waste water.  Details of the new soap, which contains iron atoms, are reported in the chemistry journal Angewandte Chemie.

It is similar to ordinary soap, but the atoms of iron help form tiny particles that are easily removed magnetically.

"If you'd have said about 10 years ago to a chemist: 'Let's have some soap that responds to magnets', they'd have looked at you with a very blank face," said co-author Julian Eastoe of the University of Bristol.

He told BBC News: "We were interested to see, if you went back to the chemical drawing board with the tool-kit of modern synthetic chemistry, if you could...design one."READ MORE HERE

No comments: