09 May 2010

technology is wonderful

Hair edition

It's good the way people can pull together to solve problems. By sopping up all the oil with their hair and stockings. That actually sounds more environmentally friendly than the dispersant technology we ordinarily use. Which just deposits all the globules of oil on the ocean floor.
Posted by Sun Tzu at 21:31
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4 comments:

Anonymous said...

I did an experiment with human hair comparing it to other sorbents to see which was most efficient at absorbing oil and not water. I thought that pencil shavings was a stroke of genius, but I was wrong. The hair did a far better job than everything else I used. Science confirmed by one person in her living room with four cups of human hair.

10 May, 2010 08:46
Sun Tzu said...

How would wood absorb more oil than water?

Hair is thus a weird device. But well worth experimentation.

10 May, 2010 10:23
Anonymous said...

I was thinking that the pencil shavings(from an electric pencil sharpener) would have enough surface area for the oil to cling to that they would remove some of the oil from the water. The sorbents were only submerged for one minute, not enough time for pressed wood to absorb water. I was right about not absorbing water, but the oil didn't cling the way I thought it would. It was the second most effective sorbent, though.

11 May, 2010 08:44
Sun Tzu said...

I hadn't thought of wood shavings as spoons rather than as absorbent material. But I suppose that would work at least a little.

11 May, 2010 14:23

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