Development of a calcium alginate-cellulose nanocrystal-based coating to reduce the impact of oil spills on shorelines

Sustainable polyurethane for the remediation of oil spills: a review

Catastrophic oil spill is one of the major issues to the environment. Various methods have been used to treat oil spillage including in situ burning, the use of skimmers, dispersants, bioremediation, dispersing agents, oil sorbents, and biological agents. Application of oil sorbent is one of the effective solutions in oil spill clean-up. Polymers are sustainable extraordinary materials for the treatment of oil spillage due to their special physicochemical characteristics such as high porosity, good hydrophobicity, and reusability. Polymers are modified using suitable chemical reagents and their hydrophobicity is enhanced, making them suitable for oil spill clean-up. The present manuscript is an attempt to summarize the study of chemical modifications done on a polymer polyurethane (PU) for achieving the desirable properties, for efficient oil spill clean-up. A patent analysis has been carried out for the leading countries, top inventors, leading assignees, trends of patent publications, citation analysis, and summary of granted patents in the area of the use of a polymer Polyurethane (PU) for oil spill clean-up.

Preparation, characteristics, and performance of the microemulsion system in the removal of oil from beach sand

Oil deposited on shoreline substrates has serious adverse effects on the coastal environment and can persist for a long time. In this study, a green and effective microemulsion (ME) derived from vegetable oil was developed as a washing fluid to remove stranded oil from beach sand. The pseudo-ternary phase diagrams of the castor oil/water (without or without NaCl)/Triton X-100/ethanol were constructed to determine ME regions, and they also demonstrated that the phase behaviors of ME systems were almost independent of salinity. ME-A and ME-B exhibited high oil removal performance, low surfactant residues, and economic benefits, which were determined to be the W/O microstructure. Under optimal operation conditions, the oil removal efficiencies for both ME systems were 84.3 % and 86.8 %, respectively. Moreover, the reusability evaluation showed that the ME system still had over 70 % oil removal rates, even though it was used six times, implying its sustainability and reliability.

Surfactant-Free Emulsion of Epoxy Resin/Sodium Alginate for Achieving Robust Underwater Superoleophobic Coating via a Combination of Phase Separation and Biomineralization

Underwater superoleophobic coatings exhibit promising prospects in the field of oil contamination resistance. However, their poor durability, stemming from the fragile structures and unstable hydrophilicity, greatly restricted their development. In this report, we proposed a novel strategy of combination water-induced phase separation and biomineralization to prepare the robust underwater superoleophobic epoxy resin-calcium alginate (EP-CA) coating by utilizing a surfactant-free emulsion of epoxy resin/sodium alginate (EP/SA). The EP-CA coating not only exhibited excellent adhesion to various substrates, but also had remarkable resistance to the physical/chemical attacks such as abrasion, acid, alkali and salt. It could also protect the substrate (e.g., PET substrate) from the damage of organic solution and the fouling of crude oil. This report provides a new perspective to fabricate robust superhydrophilic coating with a facile way.