You say that it would take 5000 robots to clean up the oil spill, but
does this mean 5000 robots per month or per week? The robots
are surface robots and now that the spill is or was subsurface
plumes are there other types of robots that would work for non
surface cleaning?
MIT researchers developed an oil cleaning robot that can absorb oil like paper towels!
Enter Seaswarm robots. Each robot is made with light nanowire mesh, so it can soak up oil 20 times its weight. And it ignores the water with its hydrophobic nature and focuses on collecting the polluting substances.
The robot is powered by photovoltaic cells and communicates with the other robots through GPS and Wi-Fi networks. The researchers estimate that it would take 5,000 robots to clean up the massive oil spill in the Gulf.
