Guwahati: In a major development, researchers at IIT Guwahati has developed a fabric that can separate oil from water and thus would help in tackling pollution caused by oil spills.
The cotton fabric which is coated with silica nanoparticles is developed using rice husk, an agricultural waste, said Vaibhav Goud, a professor in the IIT-Guwahati’s Department of Chemical Engineering.
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This new fabric has been made from agricultural waste which is converted to sustainable value-added product to mitigate marine oil pollution.
Oil spills due to industrial discharge or mishap cause irreversible damage to the aquatic ecosystems. Conventional cleaning techniques such as skimming or in-situ burning are ineffective, costly and cause additional pollution, said Goud, who authoured a paper on the research along with Sutapa Das.
“Our technology has multiple beneficial effects on the environment. Rice husk is an agricultural byproduct, rich in silica that is generated in millions of tons every year. It is usually burnt unscientifically, causing air pollution, but with our technique, this waste rice husk is converted into 3D sorbents that mitigate oil contamination by following a selective active-filtration process,” Goud said.
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In terms of how the fabric works, Goud said that rice husk is gradually heated and converted into charcoal, also known as bio-char. Subsequently, this bio-char is subjected to further heating to transform it into silica nanoparticles.