a team of undergraduate and graduate students at the university of central florida is transforming fly ash–a waste product from coal-fired power plants–into an environmentally friendly adsorbent for oil-spill cleanup.<\/p>\n
researchers hope this material will be an economical alternative to current methods of soaking up oil at clean-up sites. at the same time, it could potentially reduce the amount of fly-ash waste in landfills.<\/p>\n
tens of millions of gallons of oil are spilled into the environment every year from human activities. at the same time, tens of millions of tons of fly ash, a byproduct of coal combustion, are disposed of in landfills. fly ash, consisting of tiny spherical ceramic particles, is a poor oil sorbent. the researchers have found a simple chemical process that transforms these smooth billiard-ball-like particles into a highly porous, nanostructured material that repels water and soaks up oil. once saturated with oil, the powder can be recycled back to power plants as fuel.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
a team of undergraduate and graduate students at the university of central florida is transforming fly ash–a waste product from coal-fired power plants–into an environmentally friendly adsorbent for oil-spill cleanup. researchers hope this material will be an economical alternative to current methods of soaking up oil at clean-up sites. at the same time, it could…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8775,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4905,4902,4894,4900],"tags":[59,2497,1087],"storyfest_categories":[],"class_list":["post-13633","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-adaptation","category-colleges-education","category-efficiency","category-green-living","tag-coal","tag-fly-ash-uses","tag-oil"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n