Some of them gush millions of barrels worth of oil into the ocean.

How do you even clean up a mess like that?

Hey guys, Julia here for DNews

On April 20th 2010 an oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico exploded, spewing thousands of barrels

of oil into the coastal waters a day.

The pipe was finally capped 87 days later.

5 years later, 2-16 percent, or possibly more, of the oil still lays on the ocean floor.

Scientists are still assessing the damage to ecosystems and the people who live there.

So how do spills like that get cleaned up?

What happens to the all that oil?

The first step, contain the spill.

Oil is insoluble so it doesn't mix with water.

Instead it floats on top in a layer just a few centimeters thick.

Temporary floating barriers called booms corral the oil.

Above the surface the barriers look like a string of floating body pillows, circling

the oil.

Below the surface they have a little “skirt” of material that extends a few feet to catch

any oil below.

Once the oil's rounded up, it can be scooped up with skimmers, kind of like what you might

use to get bugs out of a pool.

If that doesn't work so well, dispersants, or chemical emulsifiers can be sprayed.

Some dispersants contain surfactants, the stuff that makes detergents

clean your clothes.

They break up the oil and other dirt because their molecules have opposite ends.

One end is hydrophilic, mean it likes water and the other is oleophilic, meaning it likes

oil.

These break up the surface tension that stops water and oil from mixing.

By breaking up the oil, it makes the oil disperse more easily into the water.

Which could keep the oil from reaching the shoreline and damaging fragile wetland ecosystems.

But some research shows that dispersants are toxic to coral, so maybe dispersants aren't

the best idea for every spill.

What other tools do we have?

Absorbents, like clay and straw soak up some of a spill but they also soak up a lot of

water.

So they're not ideal.

Fortunately, science is on the case!

Researchers from a Swiss materials research institute called Empa have developed a kind

of sponge made of chemically modified wood, called

Nanofibrillated Cellulose.

The material soaks up oil but leaves water behind, and in lab tests they're said to

have absorbed up to 50 times their own weight of oil.

Another really cool engineered sponge was recently created by Ohio State University

scientists.

The nature-inspired technology is described in a paper published in the journal Scientific

Reports.

Inspired by lotus leaves, the stainless steel mesh is coated with silica to create a bumpy

exterior.

On top of that bumpy layer is another layer of surfactant.

And finally it's sealed with a polymer coating that repels water.

One of the researchers says that a combination of these layers makes for nano-particles that

bind to oil.

They're hoping the mesh could one day be used like a giant spongesoaking up a nasty

oil spill.

Both of these technologies are still in the early development phase though, so it may

be a while before they're put to use in real disasters.

As for the oil that washes up on shore, Sometimes nature can take over, sometimes with a little

help.

Biological agents like, enzymes or microorganisms, can be added to help speed up the biodegradation

process.

According to the EPA this can either involve “bioaugmentation, where bacteria is added

to the spill site to help biodegrate the oil or

biostimulation, where nutrients are added to already present oil degraders to stimulate

growth.

So while oil spills can be pretty nasty, scientists are always looking for new and better solutions

to cleaning them up.

Another solution might be more environmentally friendly cars!

Speaking of, the new Toyota Mirai is looking to the future with sustainability in mind;

fueled by hydrogen and leaving zero emissions behind.

To learn more how we get oil out of the ground, check out this great video from Trace, where

he explains where all our oil comes from.