Magnetic separation method for oil spill cleanup

S. Khushrushahi¹ - M. Zahn¹ - T. A. Hatton²

¹ Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, Laboratory for Electromagnetic and Electronic Systems, Research Laboratory of Electronics, Cambridge, MA, 02139, USA
² Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Department of Chemical Engineering, Cambridge, MA, 02139, USA

Abstract
Oil spills have devastating environmental consequences as evident from the 2010 Deepwater Horizon disaster in the Gulf of Mexico. This work describes a new five-step magnetic separation process for oil spill cleanup that maximizes oil recovery: 1. Pump a sea water and oil spill mixture out of the ocean and onto a boat or land oil/water treatment facility. 2. Add oleophilic/hydrophobic (oil loving/water hating) or hydrophilic/oleophobic (water loving, oil hating) magnetic nanoparticles to the oil/water mixture on the boat. The magnetic nanoparticles will preferentially attach to the oil or water phase, respectively, making it magnetic. 3. Use an optimized array of permanent magnets to cleanly separate the magnetic oil from water or magnetic water from oil. 4. Once the oil is separated from the water, use suction pressure to move the magnetic fluid through a high gradient magnetic separator (HGMS) to remove the magnetic nanoparticles from the oil or water for re-use. The clean water can be returned to the ocean. 5. Now that the recovered oil is free of nanoparticles and water, it can be directed into a pipeline for transport to an oil refinery or to other locations. Figs 2, Refs 17.