Oil spill-cleaning nanobots, explosive-sensing wetsuits- underwater micro-tech hits the beach

Stretchy waterproof sensor
detects underwater explosives

Nanobots have long been considered for entering the bloodstream to combat disease, not unlike a more sophisticated version of the concept in the classic sci-fi movie "The Fantastic Voyage".  They are even being taught be able to join together, "think" and act collectively as one larger entity, with one possible application being to be deployed individually through small cracks and then, once in, joining together into a larger entity to rescue victims of earthquakes or other disasters.

 Now Joseph Wang, much-lauded professor of Nanoengineering at UC San Diego, has developed and is testing prototypes of the first nanobot designed to help clean up after oil spills.

The clean room in the Nanoengineering lab

These "microsubmarines" - about ten times smaller than the width of a human hair-  require very little fuel and move ultra-fast. They  have a "superhydrophobic" (water repellent and also very oil absorbing) coating which allows them to glide through the water and pick up oil.  Tests show the cone-shaped microsubmarines can collect droplets of olive oil and motor oil in water and transport them through the water.

Wang has already been named on 15 separate patents, with wide ranging applications from microfabricated DNA "applicable for broad use in nucleic acid analysis, particularly for measurement of nucleic acids (e.g., DNA and RNA), and their sequences and interactions, and for detection of DNA damage", to flexible sensors that can be printed onto the fabric of wetsuits to detect underwater explosives.

Oil Spill in the Gulf of Mexico: environmental
and public relations disaster

The UCSD Nanoenigeneering Department also actively seeks to collaborate with industry and governmental partners that could benefit from the research and patents developed.  Bearing in mind the both urgent importance of finding new tools to contain and eliminate oil spills, and the understandable corporate focus on not only protecting the environment, but also the public perception of the gas and oil industry; it seems likely that this technology will gain the interest and support it needs for full development to of its potential create another tool to combat environmental disasters.

Dr. Joe Wang 

      Dr. Wang explains the potential  applications of nanotechnology