MIT researchers develop robots to clean up oil spill ecologically

Remember the Oil-eating AEROS robot and the new material that solidifies spilled oil in the ocean for easy removal, well I do, and they compel me to say that the Deepwater Horizon Gulf oil spill has certainly got minds to think of ways to avert crisis like the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico or reduce the environmental impact by cleaning up the waters if it ever happens. Adding to the ways to clean up such catastrophes, researchers at MIT’s Senseable City Lab unveiled a prototype of a SeaSwarm technology.

mit senseable lab seaswarm robots to clean spilled

mit senseable lab seaswarm robots to clean spilled

The technology is based on the use of robots, 16ft long and including a 7ft wide solar-powered conveyor belt that is made of an oil-slurping nanowire mesh. The material is capable of isolating and absorbing up to 20 times its weight in oil. The robots will use the principles of swarm robotics, where thousands of such devices will be interacting and coordinating with each other using GPS and wireless technology.

The devices can either burn the oil they collect to keep them working uninterrupted or can break away from their teams occasionally to deposit their oil in large, GPS-tagged floating reservoirs. A large tanker could come and collect oil from these reservoirs.

Via: EcoFriend