Category: Green

Clearing the muck from an oil spill is tough enough without having to worry about collateral damage, but designer Hsu Sean is looking to create a Roomba-like Bio-Cleaner drone that degrades oil while keeping animals out of harm’s way.

An overview on Yanko Design shows how, after a spill, several of the drones could be dropped from helicopters above the ocean and into the water, where they could maneuver into a formation around the spill and use stored oil-hungry bacteria to clean house. An acoustic wave device installed in each drone would keep fish and other wildlife away from the danger/cleanup zone. If completed, the drones would also act autonomously while on a mission, staying powered by using ocean waves and hopefully not coordinating an autonomous paratrooping pseudo-Roomba uprising.

It may be just a wish-upon-a-star dream that we’ll ever see one of these in action, but it’s at least good to see oil spills given a creative solution (read: probably impossible robot-based solution; incidentally, it’s not the first time we’ve seen one of those). The drones are still in the concept phase right now, and there’s no telling exactly when Hsu Sean’s design will be manufactured, if ever. A lot of it – like the specifics of the bacteria and the water-based engine – seems destined to wind up mired in concept limbo.

The closest thing you’ll ever get might be throwing your Roomba into the ocean from a helicopter, which probably isn’t going to do all that much for the environment but could at least keep a few dolphins from needing to sweep the house this week.

[via TreeHugger]

These microsubs could also patrol your bloodstreamTiny, self-propelled microsubmarines could pick up and tote droplets of oil away from contaminated waters, according to a new study. The cone-shaped objects are extremely water-repellent, improving their oil-grabbing capabilities, and could serve as simple helpers in oil spills.

Joseph Wang at the University of California−San Diego and colleagues in Spain note that small tubular micro-machines have already proven useful in biology, with their ability to work as receptors or drug delivery systems. But they’re the first team to test them as environmental helpers.

The cone-machines are made from self-assembled monolayers and have special chemical properties that encourage them to pick up oil. They move quickly through the water and require very little fuel, so they could work efficiently. In lab tests, Wang and colleagues proved the machines could move through water and pick up both olive oil and motor oil, transporting collections of droplets around.

Their water-repellency could also pave the way for new drug-delivering molecules or for transferring liquids in otherwise immiscible environments, the authors say.

The devices are about 10 times thinner than a human hair, so presumably you would need epic fleets of them to make a difference in massive oil spills like the Deepwater Horizon disaster. Large-scale cleanup operations would also require different types of motors, perhaps driven by magnetic fields or electrical current, the authors note. Still, the machines could be more environmentally friendly than new types of soaps or other absorbent material.

The study appears in the journal ACS Nano.