Polymers are not chemicals. Polymer scientists, all those years of chemistry classes you took are worthless. I’m sorry. I was informed of this factoid this morning while I was eating my breakfast and watching CNN’s coverage of the oil spill in the Gulf. Reynolds Wolf (no relation, thank goodness), a meteorologist and CNN correspondent, was reporting from Louisiana on another chemical being used to help in the clean-up efforts: C.I. Agent....
The product, called C.I.Agent, made by C.I.Agent Solutions, is described by the company as an environmentally-friendly and non-toxic blend of petroleum-based polymers. In a video posted on the firm’s website, C.I.Agent looks like a white powder. The video shows the powder sticking to liquid diesel fuel and turning it into a soft, plasticy mass that can then be removed from water.The material is being given a trial run off the Gulf coast as part of a beach-protecting bunker system. A reporter-blogger from the LA Times was on the scene on Dauphin Island and posted a report with photos.
Here is the aforementioned video:
Okay, this seems like a reasonable idea, but how much product did they just put in the water to pick up the oil? It looks like there is more product than oil. So we just need a couple million pounds of this stuff?
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