Scientists Create Magnetic Soap to Cope With Oil Spills
Researchers have invented a kind of soap that can be magnetically corralled to help clean up toxic spills. The feat is accomplished by infusing more mundane suds with tiny iron particles that join together and react to magnets.Researchers have invented a kind of soap that can be magnetically corralled to help clean up toxic spills. The feat is accomplished by infusing more mundane suds with tiny iron particles that join together and react to magnets.
Magnetic soap isn’t ready for prime time, but its inventors are eager to get there. — PZS
Your support matters…BBC:
It is similar to ordinary soap, but the atoms of iron help form tiny particles that are easily removed magnetically.
“If you’d have said about 10 years ago to a chemist: ‘Let’s have some soap that responds to magnets’, they’d have looked at you with a very blank face,” said co-author Julian Eastoe of the University of Bristol.
He told BBC News: “We were interested to see, if you went back to the chemical drawing board with the tool-kit of modern synthetic chemistry, if you could…design one.”
Independent journalism is under threat and overshadowed by heavily funded mainstream media.
You can help level the playing field. Become a member.
Your tax-deductible contribution keeps us digging beneath the headlines to give you thought-provoking, investigative reporting and analysis that unearths what's really happening- without compromise.
Give today to support our courageous, independent journalists.
You need to be a supporter to comment.
There are currently no responses to this article.
Be the first to respond.