{"id":3319,"date":"2017-03-08T13:43:50","date_gmt":"2017-03-08T13:43:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/kt10.khaleejtimes.ae\/?p=3319"},"modified":"2017-03-08T13:44:14","modified_gmt":"2017-03-08T13:44:14","slug":"scientists-tweak-seat-cushion-material-clean-oil-spills","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kt10.khaleejtimes.ae\/index.php\/2017\/03\/08\/scientists-tweak-seat-cushion-material-clean-oil-spills\/","title":{"rendered":"Scientists tweak seat cushion material to clean oil spills"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Federal researchers have created a new tool to clean up oil spills by tinkering with the kind of foam found in seat cushions.<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p>The modified foam can soak up oil floating on water and lurking below the surface, and then can be repeatedly wrung out and reused, the researchers say.<\/p>\n<p>It \u201cjust bounces back like a kitchen sponge,\u201d said co-inventor Seth Darling, a scientist at the Argonne National Laboratory near Chicago.<\/p>\n<p>Other oil spill sponges are already on the market, and modifying polyurethane foam for this purpose is not a new idea. But the Argonne researchers used a new procedure to coat the foam with a material that attracts oil but not water.<\/p>\n<p>Darling and colleagues recently published a preliminary description of the foam\u2019s performance in a laboratory. Experts who examined that paper said it\u2019s hard to tell how well it would work in real-world settings, but that it appears suitable for making it in large quantities.<\/p>\n<p>Argonne is looking for a commercial partner to develop what it calls the \u201cOleo Sponge.\u201d\u2014AP<\/p>\n<p>Image: AP<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Federal researchers have created a new tool to clean up oil spills by tinkering with the kind of foam found in seat cushions.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":3320,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[31],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kt10.khaleejtimes.ae\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3319"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kt10.khaleejtimes.ae\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kt10.khaleejtimes.ae\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kt10.khaleejtimes.ae\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kt10.khaleejtimes.ae\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3319"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/kt10.khaleejtimes.ae\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3319\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3321,"href":"https:\/\/kt10.khaleejtimes.ae\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3319\/revisions\/3321"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kt10.khaleejtimes.ae\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3320"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kt10.khaleejtimes.ae\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3319"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kt10.khaleejtimes.ae\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3319"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kt10.khaleejtimes.ae\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3319"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}