Graphene-based vessel to tackle oil spills

A team of researchers from Seoul National University designed an autonomous graphene vessel for collecting and storing spilled oil. The graphene vessel selectively separates the oil, then collects and stores the captured oil in the vessel all by itself without any need for an external power input.

This prototype graphene vessel relies on capillarity and gravity that work together to fill it with the spilled oil at a rate higher than 20,000 liters per square meter per hour with oil purity better than 99.9%. The research also showed that when an oil spill occurs in bad weather and at rough seas, the graphene vessels can be left at the site to collect oil and then picked up later when conditions have returned to normal.