Eco Factor: Autonomous robots powered by solar energy to clean oil spills.
The Deepwater Horizon disaster triggered a hot market for remedial technologies that can reduce the environmental impact of such a disaster in the future. We’ve reported about next-gen robotic technologies that could help clean oil spills at a fraction of the cost that BP spent. Researchers at MIT’s Senseable City Lab have a plan to unveil a prototype of their SeaSwarm technology that can contain a leak similar in size to the BP spill for just $200 million.
The technology is based on the use of robots, 16ft long and including a 7ft wide solar-powered conveyor belt that is made of an oil-slurping nanowire mesh. The material is capable of isolating and absorbing up to 20 times its weight in oil. The robots will use the principles of swarm robotics, where thousands of such devices will be interacting and coordinating with each other using GPS and wireless technology.
The devices can either burn the oil they collect to keep them working uninterrupted or can break away from their teams occasionally to deposit their oil in large, GPS-tagged floating reservoirs. A large tanker could come and collect oil from these reservoirs.
Via: The New York Times
