A complete solution for oil-spill cleanup Scientists are
describing what may be a "complete solution" to cleaning up oil
spills -- a superabsorbent material that sops up 40 times its
own weight in oil and then can be shipped to an oil refinery and
processed to recover the oil. Their article on the material
appears in ACS' journal Energy & Fuels. T. C. Mike Chung and
Xuepei Yuan point out that current methods for coping with oil
spills like the 2010 Deepwater Horizon disaster are low-tech,
decades-old and have many disadvantages. Corncobs, straw and
other absorbents, for instance, can hold only about 5 times
their own weight and pick up water, as well as oil. Those
materials then become industrial waste that must be disposed of
in special landfills or burned. Their solution is a polymer
material that transforms an oil spill into a soft, solid oil-
containing gel. One pound of the material can recover about 5
gallons of crude oil. The gel is strong enough to be collected
and transported. Then, it can be converte