A Role for Newly Developed Sorbents in Remediating Large-Scale Oil Spills: Reviewing Recent Advances and Beyond

The conservation of ocean and freshwater have been crucial issues over the past decades, and oil/water separation is a well-known technology to restore polluted water systems. In the meantime, oil sorbents serve as a promising means of achieving water conservation to recover from oil spills, which require a multi-factorial approach to review high selectivity, capacity, and rate of oil recovery. However, reusability is a critical component to consider in incidents with large-scale spills. With the development of sorbent technology, some studies have progressed to explore surface engineering and material design for high oil sorption capacity and durability. Thus, this systemic review, a summary of sorbent developments, serves as a guide to understanding practical applications that can apply to large-scale oil spills and recognize remaining issues. In this review, the oil weathering process and oil sorption mechanisms in relation to the characteristics of target pollutants are introduced. Then, this comprehensive review focuses on materials in advanced sorbents. These materials have properties including, aligned channels for fast sorption, self-heating capabilities for viscous oil cleanup, and magnetic-responsiveness to enhance a collection of final products. The perspective and challenges for the next generation of oil spills remediation technology-based oil sorbents materials are finally presented in the last section.