Tag Archives: Seaswarm

Removing pollutants from water with nano-brushes

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The Jan. 16, 2012 news item ( by Jim Hannah) on Nanowerk about nano-brushes and water pollution reminded of an MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) event at the last Venice Biennale, which featured a demonstration of nanotechnology-enabled oil-absorbing robots (my Aug. 26 2010 posting includes a video of the MIT project, Seaswarm).

Here’s an overview of the situation, from the news item,

The need to efficiently purify water is mushrooming into a massive global issue as human and industrial consumption of water grows.

The United Nations estimates that about 1.1 billion people currently lack access to safe water. Several forecasts suggest that freshwater may become the “oil” of the 21st century – expensive, scarce and the cause of geo-political conflicts.

In the United States, aging water-treatment infrastructure is struggling to keep up with growing threats to the clean-water supply, making water purification a major energy expense. Technologies like the “nano-brush” may provide some relief.

Dr. Sharmila Mukhopadhyay of Wright State University (Ohio, US) is working on the problem with her research team and they are developing (from the news item),

… near molecular-sized “nano-brushes.”

These fuzzy structures have bristles made up of thousands of tiny, jellyfish-like strands. The increased surface area of the bristles, with proper coatings, allows them to behave like powerful cleaners that kill bacteria and destroy contaminants that pollute water.

Here’s a brief description of how this would work,

Different materials can be broken down into nano-particles and then attached to the bristles of the brushes.

For example, particles of silver kill bacteria on contact without being dispersed as pollutants in the water. Particles of palladium break up carbon-tetrachloride and other water pollutants. And particles of titanium oxide can zap pollutants when activated by sunlight.

Mukhopadhyay plans to attach three or four different kinds of water-purifying particles to the nano-brushes. “So simultaneously you can combine multiple environmental cleanup applications into one single component,” she said.

They have been testing this solution in the lab and they appear to be confident that it will be deployed in the field in the next few years. I’m thrilled that the nanoparticles being used for the cleanup don’t become pollutants themselves (at least, not so far).

Oil-absorbing (nanotechnology-enabled) robots at Venice Biennale?

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MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) researchers are going to be presenting nano-enabled oil-absorbing robots, Seaswarm, at the Venice Biennale , (from the news item on Nanowerk),

Using a cutting edge nanotechnology, researchers at MIT have created a robotic prototype that could autonomously navigate the surface of the ocean to collect surface oil and process it on site.

The system, called Seaswarm, is a fleet of vehicles that may make cleaning up future oil spills both less expensive and more efficient than current skimming methods. MIT’s Senseable City Lab will unveil the first Seaswarm prototype at the Venice Biennale’s Italian Pavilion on Saturday, August 28. The Venice Biennale is an international art, music and architecture festival whose current theme addresses how nanotechnology will change the way we live in 2050.

I did look at the Biennale website for more information about the theme and about Seaswarm but details, at least on the English language version of the website, are nonexistent. (Note: The Venice Biennale was launched in 1895 as an art exhibition. Today the Biennale features, cinema, architecture, theatre, and music as well as art.)

You can find out more about Seaswarm at MIT’s senseable city lab here and/or you can watch this animation,

The animation specifically mentions BP and the Gulf of Mexico oil spill and compares the skimmers used to remove oil from the ocean with Seaswarm skimmers outfitted with  nanowire meshes,

The Seaswarm robot uses a conveyor belt covered with a thin nanowire mesh to absorb oil. The fabric, developed by MIT Visiting Associate Professor Francesco Stellacci, and previously featured in a paper published in the journal Nature Nanotechnology, can absorb up to twenty times its own weight in oil while repelling water. By heating up the material, the oil can be removed and burnt locally and the nanofabric can be reused.

“We envisioned something that would move as a ‘rolling carpet’ along the water and seamlessly absorb a surface spill,” said Senseable City Lab Associate Director Assaf Biderman. “This led to the design of a novel marine vehicle: a simple and lightweight conveyor belt that rolls on the surface of the ocean, adjusting to the waves.”

The Seaswarm robot, which is 16 feet long and seven feet wide, uses two square meters of solar panels for self-propulsion. With just 100 watts, the equivalent of one household light bulb, it could potentially clean continuously for weeks.

I’d love to see the prototype in operation not to mention getting a chance to attend La Biennale.