Nano Sorbents Able to Remove Pollutions Caused by Oil Derivatives | WPN World People News

The sorbents are biocompatible and are produced through a simple and cheap method.

Organic solvents are currently used in large quantity in various industries, including petrochemicals, chemicals and textile. Increasing environmental pollutions caused by the application of these solvents in various aspects is a reason for the researchers to carry out research on the elimination of the solvents.

The aim of the research was to synthesize polymeric gels to be used as the sorbent of organic solvents, in a way that they combine unique properties of polymeric gels and carbon nanotubes.

The synthesized sorbents can adsorb oil products and their derivatives, including organic solvents. The sorbents can be used in upstream oil projects and the related petrochemicals that produce the derivatives or use them, which produce wastewater.

Among other advantages of the synthesized sorbents is high sorption capacity and rate, ease of separation from the polluted area after the sorption, low production cost and simple synthesis method, reusability and biocompatibility.

According to the researchers, the surface of carbon nanotubes has been functionalized in this research in a way that it takes part in polymerization reactions, and it is used besides hydrophobic monomers in the synthesis of organogel nanocomposites. The ability of the synthesized organogels in the sorption of organic solvents with different polarity was investigated afterwards.

Source: Nanotechnology Now