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SPILLED oil could one day be scooped off the surface of the sea like a layer of fat, claim chemists who have developed a benign gelling agent.

George John, professor of chemistry at City College of New York, US, tells tce that he can solidify oil atop salt water by adding so-called sugar alcohol-fatty acid conjugates.

In contrast to the dispersants used in the ongoing Gulf of Mexico oil spill, the new agent is non-toxic and biodegradable, the research team says.

To date the method has only been used in the lab. “Within five minutes, the oil had gelled into a substance thick enough to be scooped up,” John says.

He adds that for the solution to make it to the real world his team must first develop a large-scale process to produce sugar derivatives at a low price. If this is possible, he envisions the mixture being sprayed or injected into the sea to clean up oil spills.

In the lab only a relatively small amount of the agent is required – some 5% of the volume of the oil being recovered, though John admits he does not know how inclement weather would affect the results. Furthermore, the agent mops up a range of oil types from crude to vegetable oil.

Using a vacuum distillation separation process, John’s team can recover 80% of the oil from the gel. BP is presently using a range of methods to remove oil from the surface of the sea, including controlled burns and more environmentally friendly techniques for recovering oil including industrial centrifuges.

Published in Angewandte Chemie doi: 10.1002/anie.201002095