Context
Researchers at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Guwahati, have developed a new class of super-hydrophobic cotton composite with Metal-Organic Framework (MOF) that promise marine oil-spill clean-up in near future.
About the Technology
- This is a novel, highly porous and water-repellent super-hydrophobic cotton composite material containing MOF, which can absorb oil selectively from an oil-water mixture.
- The MOF composite has great capability for selective separation of the oils from oil / water mixtures and the separation efficiency lies between 95 per cent and 98 per cent, irrespective of the chemical composition and density of the oils.
- Besides, the MOF composite is also able to absorb large volumes of oils and can be reused for a minimum of 10 times so that the sorbents can provide more recovery of the spilled oil.
- The practical applications of this research include cleaning the spilled oil from environmental water (river, sea or ocean water) during oil transportation with high efficiency and large absorption capacity, thus reducing environmental water pollution.
- Both heavy and light oils can be effectively absorbed by the material, which is easy to prepare, cost-effective and recyclable.
MOFs
- MOFs are a class of compounds containing metal ions coordinated to organic ligands to form 3D structures, with the special feature that they are often highly porous materials that act like a sponge.
- It was observed that the medical cotton changes from hydrophilic to super-hydrophobic material and can float on the water surface.
- The MOF-coated cotton fibre composite showed water repellence with a water contact angle of 163°.
- The flexible super-hydrophobic MOF composite showed an oil absorption capacity of more than 2500 wt per cent.
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