MIT has developed a mesh paper called Nanowire that absorbs oil from water. The intended use for the paper is to clean up oil and other organic pollutants. This new technology could play a very important role in oil spills if mass produced. Perhaps the most amazing aspect of this new paper is that is it reusable and so is the oil it absorbs.

Below is a picture of a vile of water with gasoline (dyed blue) that has been removed with with the Nanowaire paper.

Researchers are already looking into how this technology can be integrated with water transfer and filtration systems in large cities to help with purification. Could substantial amounts of oil be pulled from these irrigation systems? Billions of gallons of water are transferred every day in the United States alone. From these billions of gallons of daily water, how much oil could be extracted and re-used?

Additionally, are there other applications where this oil absorbent material could be put to use, such as filtering oil particles out of pollutants?