BlueStem's Carbonised Fibre Sorbent (BCFS)

We have developed a novel, low-cost, highly selective, super-oleophilic and strongly hydrophobic, biodegradable and multi-use sorbent that absorbs 76 times its own weight in oil and hydrocarbons from oil-water mixtures and effluents.

BCFS can be adapted and implemented for a wide range of applications, from oil spill recovery to essential oil refining. BCFS process modules can cost-effectively recover oil from oil-water mixtures and can be readily implemented in existing industrial processes.

Other oil/hydrocarbon sorbents are either prohibitively expensive (up to USD 200/kg) or can only be used once before being discarded. In contrast;

• BCFS can be reused 100 times to absorb oil and hydrocarbons.

• Additionally, BCFS can absorb 76 times its own weight in oil/hydrocarbons in a single cycle. Therefore, one gram of BCFS can absorb 7.7kg of oil over its entire lifetime.

• This leads to a revenue of USD 3,700 per kg of BCFS from hydrocarbon recovery.

• BCFS can be implemented in a wide range of industries, with the potential to replace large, expensive and highly specialised oil-water separators.

Some recently published research work is shown here: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.fuel.2021.120488

A full technical brief is presented here.