Volcanic basalt is a rock which can be turned into oil-absorbent fibers.
A company named EcoBasalt was founded in Israel in February of 2012. Its founders are leveraging Russian space technology to create a new product for cleaning up oil spills. Their product is named SB-1 and is based on the absorbent properties of basalt. Basalt is a common kind of dark volcanic rock which has been used in everything from the floors of Egyptian pyramids to the insulation of Soyuz spacecraft and now it might help us clean up oil spills.
Ecobasalt fabric before sucking up oil
More than 70,000 barrels of oil are produced every day and all of it must be transported to the consumers. We hear about the spectacularly large oil spills which occur at the well-head or aboard supertankers, but given the amount of oil produced and consumed every day, spills along the entire supply chain are inevitable. Therefore, oil spill containment is an important problem to solve.
Ecobasalt after sucking up oil
In the case of BP’s Deepwater Horizon oil spill and Egypt’s Jebel al-Zayt oil spill, chemical dispersants worked quickly to sweep some of the long-term problems beneath the waves where they won’t effect this quarter’s stock prices, but the cosmetic application of millions of gallons of toxic dispersants may cause more long-term damage than the oil-spill they were intended to cure.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eGGkWIIreCA[/youtube]
Clay, sand, oil-based synthetics and even human hair can be used to absorb oil spills, but EcoBasalt’s SB-1 basalt fibers have some advantages. EcoBasalt’s tests show that one gram of SB-1 can absorb up to 72 grams of oil, at least twice as much as typical carbon-based absorbants and it can do it faster.
SB-1 is a non-toxic, natural, fire, alkali and acid-resistant substance, so it is possible to burn absorbed oil without extracting it from the basalt. Extraction is also possible by simply compressing the SB-1 and as a third alternative, SB-1 can be mixed with asphalt and used in road construction
Robert Barzelay, the CEO of EcoBasalt tells Green Prophet that the product has not yet been tested on oil spills.
He says: “We have developed an oil sorbent made of basalt fibers. It has been a result of decades of R&D, and years of testing. It has been tested and proven (by independent labs in the USA and Israel) to perform far better than anything else on the market. Plus it is non-toxic, constitutes no health hazards, is ecofriendly, and the removed oil, can be recuperated from the sorbent, whereafter the sorbent can be recycled in asphalt for roads.
“There is nothing like it on the market.”
“At the moment we are at the stage to design oil sorbent booms with our basalt fiber sorbent material. In addition, we are in the process of setting up our own production lines. Once the end-product (oil boom) has been developed and produced, it will be tested by OHMSETT in the USA, and by (at least) ten oil and gas companies and so-called oil spill responders, companies and organizations that contain oil spills and do the cleanup.”
Image of lizard on volcanic rock from Shutterstock
Author: Brian Nitz
Brian remembers when a single tear dredged up a nation's guilt. The tear belonged to an Italian-American actor known as Iron-Eyes Cody, the guilt was displaced from centuries of Native American mistreatment and redirected into a new environmental awareness. A 10-year-old Brian wondered, 'What are they... No, what are we doing to this country?' From a family of engineers, farmers and tinkerers Brian's father was a physics teacher. He remembers the day his father drove up to watch a coal power plant's new scrubbers turn smoke from dirty grey-back to steamy white. Surely technology would solve every problem. But then he noticed that breathing was difficult when the wind blew a certain way. While sailing, he often saw a yellow-brown line on the horizon. The stars were beginning to disappear. Gas mileage peaked when Reagan was still president. Solar panels installed in the 1970s were torn from roofs as they were no longer cost-effective to maintain. Racism, public policy and low oil prices transformed suburban life and cities began to sprawl out and absorb farmland. Brian only began to understand the root causes of "doughnut cities" when he moved to Ireland in 2001 and watched history repeat itself. Brian doesn't...
