Texas Tech University researchers have recently discovered that low-grade cotton made into an absorbent non-woven mat can collect up to 50 times its own weight in oil.
The results strengthen the use of cotton as a natural sorbent for oil, Seshadri Ramkumar, Professor in the Department of Environmental Toxicology at Texas Tech, who led the research, said in a release, from the University.
Ramkumar is the creator of Fibertect(r), a non-woven decontamination wipe developed by researchers at Texas Tech capable of cleaning chemical and biological agents.
Vinitkumar Singh, a Doctoral candidate working under Ramkumar, performed experiments in the study and this multidisciplinary project involved scientists from Cotton Incorporated and Texas Tech's Departments of Mechanical Engineering and Environmental Toxicology.
In the four year project, scientists tried to create a fundamental understanding of the effect of fiber structure and basic characteristics of cotton on oil sorption capacity of unprocessed raw cotton. The work also examined the basic mechanisms behind oil sorption by non-woven cotton webs, he said.
"We believe non woven cotton webs as an oil sorbent have tremendous potential for application in real-time oil spill scenarios along with environmental sustainability and commercial acceptability," Ramkumar said.
The researchers are working with Texas Tech's Office of Technology Commercialisation to take this technology into commercial space within a span of 12 months. Recently, there have been some active interests to evaluate our product for further consideration, he said.
"Our research shows cotton as a high-performance fiber that can be deployed to clean up toxic oil spills. More importantly, the oil sorption by environmentally friendly and natural sorbents like aligned non-woven cotton made from raw unprocessed cotton and correlation with its characteristics, such as cotton quality, fineness and maturity, are not reported at all to our best knowledge." Ramkumar added.
