Researchers at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev in Beersheba have developed a porous aerogel that can capture oil spills and help oil-eating bacteria break down crude oil and fuel pollution in marine and aquatic environments. The material can adsorb about 80 to 100 times its own mass in crude oil, fuel, tar and other hydrocarbons. That’s the headline number. The rest is the familiar story of damage control after the damage has already been done.
The State’s Cleanup Machine
The work was led in the university’s Environmental Biotechnology Laboratory by Prof. Ariel Kushmaro and Dr. Danit Lisa Karsagi Biron of BGU’s Faculty of Engineering. The researchers made the aerogel from cellulose fibers that could come from used egg cartons, old newspapers and other paper materials, then enriched it with nitrogen and phosphorus to support oil-degrading bacteria. They said they developed it using nutrient enrichment, freeze-drying and pyrolysis in the absence of oxygen, a process that prevents combustion.
Kushmaro said the aerogel provides a surface on which bacteria can attach, bringing them into close contact with both the adsorbed hydrocarbons and the nutrients they need. In that way, he said, the system creates conditions that support microbial breakdown of the captured pollutants. He also said the material floats on water, causing oil to clump together, and that it takes between two and three weeks for the oil to disappear. If the spill is in the middle of the sea, he said, the material can be dropped from a plane. He said the cellular material itself is biodegradable and that waves, currents and changing temperatures would not interfere with the cleanup.
The technology is undergoing patent recognition through BGN Technologies, BGU’s technology commercialization company. Kushmaro said the team has a world patent on it and that Shell, the global British multinational energy and petrochemical company, has already contacted the researchers to ask for information about it. He also said the Environmental Protection Ministry knows about it, but that it is completely new and needs regulation. The same institutions that manage pollution, profit from energy, and regulate the aftermath are all in the room. Naturally.
Oil, Tar, and the Geography of Neglect
The article also revisited a study from 1999 to 2002 that began with identifying the environmental sensitivity of Israel’s Mediterranean coastline to marine oil spills. That study included GIS sensitivity mapping and an analysis of the environmental vulnerability of Israel’s shoreline resources. It examined the main sources of risk for maritime accidents in the southeastern Mediterranean, developed scenarios for possible oil spill incidents and analyzed protection priorities for coastal ecosystems in the event of a large spill.
Kushmaro said the study described the form and structure of Israel’s coastline, measured the physical features of oceans, seas, lakes and rivers, and examined meteorological patterns that dominate and control shoreline dynamics, as well as the potential for major oil spills. He said it also studied the different ways oil spills can affect natural ecosystems and socio-economic resources along the coastline of Israel. He said the study aimed to determine the relative sensitivity of different types of shoreline and to prioritize shoreline and coastal resources to be protected after a large oil spill, and that it presented and analyzed data in a clear and useful way for scientific and environmental communities and national authorities responsible for oil spill preparedness and response.
One conclusion of that study was that the sensitivity of the Israeli Mediterranean coastline to oil spills could be considered moderate compared with other fragile ecosystems, mainly because of the form of the sandy beaches and the high exposure of most types of beaches to energetic natural cleanup processes, Kushmaro said. He added that ecosystems, habitats, shoreline types and coastal resources along the southeastern Mediterranean coastline are still sensitive to oil spills. He said the 195 km. of Israel’s Mediterranean shoreline, from the chalky limestone vertical cliffs of Rosh Hanikra on the border with Lebanon to the white sandy beaches of Erez that border the Gaza Strip, are exposed to winds and surface sea current systems and heavy traffic of oil tankers in the eastern Mediterranean, creating a constant threat of a serious oil pollution incident.
Kushmaro said tar has stained nearly 160 km. of Israel’s coastline and that there are still tar remnants from the 2021 disaster on some beaches. He said the spill was called one of the most serious ecological disasters in the country’s history. He also said Israeli environmental protection agencies admitted then that the government was underfunded to deal with such disasters and that there was not adequate legislation in place to prevent such a disaster in the future. The shoreline keeps paying for the failures of the people who claim to manage it.
Patents, Ports, and the Public Cost
Kushmaro said he earned his doctorate with distinction from Tel Aviv University and trained as a postdoctoral fellow at the Hebrew University’s Kevin Center for the Study of Infectious and Tropical Diseases and at Harvard University. He joined BGU in 2001 and established the microbial ecology and microbial biotechnology lab, which focuses on wastewater microbiology, marine microbial ecology and the antimicrobial activity of various microorganisms. He said he and his team would most like to test the aerogel in a polluted marina because, as he put it, there is oil in all the ports.
The team published its findings in Chemical Engineering Journal Advances under the title “Nutrient-supplemented carbonized aerogels for integrated oil adsorption and biodegradation in water.” Kushmaro said the most unusual aspect of the invention is not only that the aerogel absorbs 100 times its weight, but that it turns the material into a habitat for oil-eating bacteria so that capture and biological cleanup happen together. That may be the cleanest sentence in the whole story. The mess it describes is still out there, floating, staining, and waiting for the next spill.