Oil and water don’t mix but they can also be a pain to separate. Researchers at the University of Surrey, UK, have patented a method they think will do the trick (W0 03/82429). They say polar liquids such as water are attracted to polar surfaces. These surfaces also repel non-polar liquids such as oil.
The researchers exploit these properties in a Y-shaped tube in which one arm is coated with a non-polar layer of vinyltrichlorosilane with a trace of platinum. The other is plain glass. When an oil-water mix is pumped into the leg of the Y, the oily…
