Advanced Sorbents for Oil‐Spill Cleanup: Recent Advances and Future Perspectives

TLDR

Oil sorbents are critical for remediating oil spills by absorbing and containing hydrocarbons. The study aims to improve oil‑sorption performance and simplify recovery by reviewing design strategies and recent advances in advanced sorbents. It discusses fabrication design principles, modification approaches, and recent developments in carbon‑based and swellable oleophilic polymer sorbents, along with device implementations and required extreme‑condition properties.

Abstract

Oil sorbents play a very important part in the remediation processes of oil spills. To enhance the oil‐sorption properties and simplify the oil‐recovery process, various advanced oil sorbents and oil‐collecting devices based on them have been proposed recently. Here, we firstly discuss the design considerations for the fabrication of oil sorbents and describe recently developed oil sorbents based on modification strategy. Then, recent advances regarding oil sorbents mainly based on carbon materials and swellable oleophilic polymers are also presented. Subsequently, some additional properties are emphasized, which are required by oil sorbents to cope with oil spills under extreme conditions or to facilitate the oil‐collection processes. Furthermore, some oil‐collection devices based on oil sorbents that have been developed recently are shown. Finally, an outlook and challenges for the next generation of oil‐spill‐remediation technology based on oil‐sorbents materials are given.