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They mention at the end of the article they are working on larger scale water processing systems which would recover and reuse the particles. I think this is c

They mention at the end of the article they are working on larger scale water processing systems which would recover and reuse the particles. I think this is critical not only for efficiency but also health and safety. I'd rather not end up drinking unknown nanoparticles... I hope the musings in the article that it might also work for lead removal turn out true. Good luck!

derefr 9y ago
By "recover", they mean recovering them out of the removed oil. The nanoparticles are fully recovered from the water by the magnetic force (it wouldn't really be a useful invention otherwise) but much of them are trapped in the oil they bring with them (that being rather the point) and this means that it's hard to "clean" the now-dirty nanoparticles in order to make them useful for extracting more oil. (Though, I'm not too clear on why this is a hard problem—couldn't they just, say, throw them into some nitric acid to destroy any organics, like you'd do with chem-lab glassware?)
- gooseus 9y ago
  I'm super unclear on exactly what these nano-particles are made of, or the nature of the charged polymer coating that is required for binding. There was an oil spill on the East River in NYC a month ago, about 5000 gallons of oil[0]. Since each nanoparticle binds to some small amount of point, then would we need some close fraction of 5000 gallons worth of charged-polymer coated nanoparticles to extract it all? If the production of this awesome substance is even close to as straining on the environment (aren't most polymers oil-based?) then I don't see it as a magic bullet for solving all of our water-contamination problems. Still super freaking cool though. [0] http://www.amny.com/news/east-river-oil-spill-thousands-of-gallons-seeped-into-water-coast-guard-estimates-1.13601845 http://www.amny.com/news/east-river-oil-spill-thousands-of-g...
  - semi-extrinsic 9y ago
    This isn't for cleaning up large spills, it's for polishing water with O(0.1%) oil dispersed, to the point that it's clean enough to release into the environment.
- semi-extrinsic 9y ago
  > Though, I'm not too clear on why this is a hard problem—couldn't they just, say, throw them into some nitric acid to destroy any organics, like you'd do with chem-lab glassware? The expensive and tricky part of these (like any) magnetic nanofluid particles is the surface covering that makes them soluble in water but also attracted to oil droplets. Any harsh chemicals would destroy that, and you're left with just fancy rust.

derefr 9y ago

By "recover", they mean recovering them out of the removed oil. The nanoparticles are fully recovered from the water by the magnetic force (it wouldn't really be a useful invention otherwise) but much of them are trapped in the oil they bring with them (that being rather the point) and this means that it's hard to "clean" the now-dirty nanoparticles in order to make them useful for extracting more oil. (Though, I'm not too clear on why this is a hard problem—couldn't they just, say, throw them into some nitric acid to destroy any organics, like you'd do with chem-lab glassware?)

gooseus 9y ago
I'm super unclear on exactly what these nano-particles are made of, or the nature of the charged polymer coating that is required for binding. There was an oil spill on the East River in NYC a month ago, about 5000 gallons of oil[0]. Since each nanoparticle binds to some small amount of point, then would we need some close fraction of 5000 gallons worth of charged-polymer coated nanoparticles to extract it all? If the production of this awesome substance is even close to as straining on the environment (aren't most polymers oil-based?) then I don't see it as a magic bullet for solving all of our water-contamination problems. Still super freaking cool though. [0] http://www.amny.com/news/east-river-oil-spill-thousands-of-gallons-seeped-into-water-coast-guard-estimates-1.13601845 http://www.amny.com/news/east-river-oil-spill-thousands-of-g...
- semi-extrinsic 9y ago
  This isn't for cleaning up large spills, it's for polishing water with O(0.1%) oil dispersed, to the point that it's clean enough to release into the environment.
semi-extrinsic 9y ago
> Though, I'm not too clear on why this is a hard problem—couldn't they just, say, throw them into some nitric acid to destroy any organics, like you'd do with chem-lab glassware? The expensive and tricky part of these (like any) magnetic nanofluid particles is the surface covering that makes them soluble in water but also attracted to oil droplets. Any harsh chemicals would destroy that, and you're left with just fancy rust.