A polymer made from waste cooking oil and sulphur can clean up crude oil spills

by xVedunon 4/19/2018, 3:31:18 AM with 4 comments
  • by williadcon 4/19/2018, 6:02:20 AM

    For those who were annoyed by the inconsistent units in the story:

    "International Tanker Owners Pollution Federation reporting about 7000 tonnes of crude oil spilling from tankers into oceans in 2017 alone."

    ".. explosion on the Deepwater Horizon offshore drilling rig on 20 April 2010 and subsequent release of approximately 4.9 million barrels of crude oil into the Gulf of Mexico."

    According to this site (https://www.reference.com/science/much-barrel-oil-weigh-b29e...) "In order to get a metric tonne of oil, one would need about 7.33 barrels of oil."

    7000 tonnes ~ 51,310 barrels

    4.9 million barrels ~ 668,485 tonnes

  • by ehntoon 4/19/2018, 5:46:42 AM

    I see a surprising amount of awesome work coming out of the pokey town of Adelaide.

  • by wodenokotoon 4/19/2018, 6:33:37 AM

    Hopefully the Chinese gutter-oil industry[1] will start selling to this purpose, instead of as cooking oil!

    [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gutter_oil - while recycling oil from deep fryers might not sound awful, some gutter oil is literally taken from the gutter - sewage is being recycled and sold as cooking oil in parts of China!

  • by haZard_OSon 4/19/2018, 2:12:35 PM

    Spoiler Alert: The article takes too much space to say almost nothing.

    sigh Science journalists.