Low-grade cotton offers more ecologically - friendly way to clean oil spills

摘要

When it comes to cleaning up the next massive crude oil spill, one of the best and most eco-friendly solutions for the job may be low-grade cotton from West Texas. Seshadri Ramkumar, lead author of the study and Manager of the Nonwovens and Advanced Materials Laboratory at The Institute of Environmental and Human Health (TIEHH), said he and his colleagues found that low-micronaire cotton one of the lowest-quality types of cotton is most effective at picking up oil. A pound of the low-micronaire cotton can pick up more than 30 pound of crude oil, and its natural waxiness helps to repel water. The new study includes some of the first scientific data on unprocessed raw cotton's use in crude oil spills, and was published in the ACS journal Industrial and Engineering Chemistry Research.