New Product Excels at Sucking up Oil

"Paul Edmiston, a chemistry professor at The College of Wooster, started out looking for a compound that would help detect explosives at airports. What he found instead was a material that hates water but loves hydrocarbons like oil with a passion.

He dubbed the new material Osorb because it can expand up to eight times its original volume, lift 20,000 times its own weight and suck oil or other hydrocarbons out of water without leaving any trace of itself in the environment. And the hydrocarbons it removes can also be reused.

“A thermos full can lift your car,” he told BusinessNewsDaily.

The discovery and commercial development came just in time for its baptism by fire when it was pilot-tested during the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico last year. It worked. And a potential game-changing technology was born."

Ned Smith reports for Business News Daily February 15, 2011.