Absorbent robots could prove vital in next oil spill clean up
September 2, 2010 | Length: 00:02:37
Researchers at MIT have developed independent robots that use a revolutionary nanomaterial to absorb considerable amounts of oil - up to 20 times their weight. Powered by solar panels, the low-cost robots which are designed to work in fleets, would use GPS and wireless communication systems to navigate a spill site.
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Then consider the lack of integrity, immorality, and greed inherent to the people involved with the energy businesses, their bureaucratic minions, and the corrupt politicians that make any noble idea about protecting the environment much less other citizens that are in the way of profit all seem like a hopeless pursuit. That's realistic. Victims never get recovered while perpetrators always prevail. That's the American way.
Transcript
Music Female Speaker: Following the 2010 Deepwater Horizon leak, an estimated 5 million barrels of oil spread into the Gulf of Mexico. In order to remove the oil at the surface of the ocean, over 800 skimmers were deployed. However these vessels were only capable of collecting 3 percent of the overall surface spill due to challenges of operation and scalability. What if we could design a small, inexpensive, scalable, self-organizing skimmer that would operate autonomously to corral, absorb, and process the oil on site? Using a breakthrough nanotechnology developed at MIT, it is now possible to easily separate oil from water. A new nanofabric selectively absorbs large quantities of hydrophobic liquids like oil without collecting any water. By heating up the material, the oil can then be removed and the nanofabric can be used over and over again with constant absorption. Imagine we could use this nanomaterial on the surface of the ocean like a paper tower gliding along the water. Seaswarm is a fleet of autonomously self-powered robots that communicate and propel themselves through the ocean while collecting oil. Portable fuel cell power the vehicle which is 100 watts as the nanofabric covered conveyor belt seamlessly sucks up pollution while moving forward. Using swarm behavior, the units communicate via GPS and Wi-Fi to manage their coordinates and ensuring even distribution over the spill site. By detecting the edge of a spill and moving inward, a single vehicle can clean an entire site autonomously or engage other vehicles for faster cleaning.
Music Female Speaker: Our calculation suggests that 5,000 Seaswarm vehicles operating continuously for a month would be able to clean up an area the size of the Gulf oil spill.
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==== Transcribed by Automatic Sync Technologies ====