Oil on the waters — Science News, October 14, 1972
[In the late 1960s], about the perfect technique of cleansing up oil was to place straw on it, then scoop up the oily straw by hand or with pitchforks. Now trade … has devised an arsenal of oil cleanup chemical substances. Thin-layer chemical substances can be utilized to herd oil collectively and to thicken it…. Chemicals can be found as absorbents too. Still different chemical substances … disperse oil all through the water. Other chemical substances present promise as oil-burning brokers.
Update
Chemicals are the norm right now, however the way forward for oil-cleanup know-how might be microbial. In current years, researchers have proven that soil microbes broke down among the oil from the 2010 Deepwater Horizon spill within the Gulf of Mexico (SN Online: 6/26/15). And electrical micro organism, which channel electrical energy via their threadlike our bodies, may assist by turning oil munchers’ waste into gasoline for the microbes, scientists reported (SN: 7/16/22 & 7/30/22, p. 24). Microbial mops aren’t but prepared for prime time, so chemical dispersants, hearth and spongelike sorbents stay key instruments in cleanup kits.