Researchers from Deakin University (Australia) have developed a new material, boron-based nanosheets, which can mop up oil spills more efficiently than current methods and are recyclable. From the May 1, 2013 news item on Nanowerk, (Note: A link has been removed)

In Nature Communications today (“Porous boron nitride nanosheets for effective water cleaning”), we showed how we produced, probably for the first time, nanosheets that could revolutionise oil spill clean ups and water purification.

Not only do our nanosheets absorb 33 times their weight in oil, they’re also recyclable.

Ordinarily there’d be a news release from Deakin University but these researchers appear to have taken a different approach posting on a website called The Conversation. This is a very interesting science communicaton initiative from Australia and I will be digressing for a moment. Here’s a description of the initiative from their Who We Are page,

The Conversation is an independent source of news and views, sourced from the academic and research community and delivered direct to the public.

Our team of professional editors work with university, CSIRO and research institute experts to unlock their knowledge for use by the wider public.

Access to independent, high-quality, authenticated, explanatory journalism underpins a functioning democracy. Our aim is to allow for better understanding of current affairs and complex issues. And hopefully allow for a better quality of public discourse and conversations.

We have introduced new protocols and controls to help rebuild trust in journalism. All authors and editors sign up to our Editorial Charter and Code of Ethics. And all contributors must abide by our Community Standards policy. We only allow authors to write on a subject on which they have proven expertise, which they must disclose alongside their article. Authors’ funding and potential conflicts of interest must be disclosed. Failure to do so carries a risk of being banned from contributing to the site.

Since our launch in March 2011, we’ve grown to become one of Australia’s largest independent news and commentary sites. Around 35% of our readers are from outside Australia.

We believe in open access and the free-flow of information. The Conversation is a free resource: free to read (we’ll never go behind a paywall), and free to share or republish under Creative Commons. All you need to do is follow our simple guidelines. We have also become an indispensable media resource: providing free content, ideas and talent to follow up for press, web, radio or TV.

…

They believe in open access and the free-flow of information as long as you don’t edit the article, etc. Here are five of the guidelines (from the Republishing guidelines page),

Republishing guidelines, for print and online

1. Unless you have express permission from the author, you can’t edit our material, except to reflect relative changes in time, location and editorial style. (For example, “yesterday” can be changed to “last week,” and “Canberra, ACT.” to “Canberra” or “here”). If you need to materially edit our content, please contact our External Relations Manager.
2. You have to credit our authors and partner institutions — ideally in the byline. We prefer “Author Name, Institution” (for example, Qing Wang, Warwick Business School).
3. You have to credit The Conversation — ideally at the top of the article and include our logo — with a link back to either our home page, The Conversation, or (preferably) the specific article URL on The Conversation website.
4. If space is tight, you can run the first few lines of the article and then say: “Read the full article at The Conversation” with a link back to the article page on our site.
5. If you’re republishing online, you must use our page view counter, link to us, and include links from our story. Our page view counter is a small pixel-ping image (invisible to the eye) that allows us to know when our content is republished, and gives our authors sense of the size of audience and which publications they’re reaching. It is a condition of our guidelines that you include our counter. If you use the “republish” button that accompanies each article then you’ll capture our page counter.
6. ….

Since I usually cut and paste parts of articles and news releases and often intersperse with my own comments and I don’t have the technical skills to use their page view counter, I won’t be using anything directly from The Conversation. I view my role as a curator (bringing together pieces of information from disparate sources) and a ‘connector’. To encourage connections, I don’t usually include a full news release or article as I suggest my readers look at the original or seek out the other sources I’ve included if they want more information.

Back to the boron nitride nanosheets and the news item on Nanowerk,

We found that porous boron nitride nanosheets have a couple of properties that make them particularly suitable for absorbing organic (carbon-based) contaminants, such as oil or dyes.
…

The nanosheets are made of a few layers of boron nitride atomic planes, and these sheets have a large number of holes.

It’s these holes that increase the surface area of the nanosheets to a huge 1,425m2 a gram.
This means one gram of porous boron nitride nanosheets has the same surface area as nearly 5.5 tennis courts – so plenty of surface for absorption.

Another advantage is that the saturated boron nitride nanosheets can be cleaned for reuse by simply heating in air for two hours.

The absorbed oil is burned off, leaving the nanosheets clean and free to absorb again.

To make our porous nanosheets, boron oxide powder and guanidine hydrochloride are mixed in methane and heated at 1,100C for several hours in nitrogen gas.

The news item on Nanowerk is illustrated with images and provides more detail as does the May 1, 2013 article (Don’t cry over spilled oil – use nanosheets) on The Conversation.

For those who’d like to read the published research, here’s a link to and a citation for it,

Porous boron nitride nanosheets for effective water cleaning by Weiwei Lei, David Portehault, Dan Liu, Si Qin, & Ying Chen. Nature Communications 4, Article number: 1777 doi:10.1038/ncomms2818 Published 30 April 2013

The article is behind a paywall.

Interestingly scientists in China have developed an entirely different material with similar properties for mopping up oil spills as per my Feb. 27, 2013 posting titled, Bacterial cellulose could suck up pollutants from oil spills.

ETA May 6, 2013: Dexter Johnson has commented on an outstanding issue with the Deakin University research and other such initiatives: a lack of commercialization efforts. From his May 4, 2013 posting on his Nanoclast blog (found on the IEEE [Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers] website), Note: A link has been removed,

In fact, there are a variety of nanomaterials for these applications [oil spill remediation and water purification]—so many of them that there are catalogues to guide you through them.  But not so fast. As yet, no one is bothering to commercialize them so that they are available for the next oil spill.

Dexter provides worthwhile context and some provocative comments on how to ‘encourage’ commercialization of nanotechnology-enabled oil spill remediation/water purification  products.