Wastewater Treatment & Management

Revolutionary Technology in the Removal of Hydrocarbons from Water and Air

For the first time in more than a century, there is a new option for the filtration of hydrocarbons and oil in air and water. Oil remediation and air and water treatment industries have traditionally utilized activated carbon and standard filtering procedures, neither of which have undergone more than minor tweaks to technologies in the past 100 years. But now, MYCELX, a viscoelastic absorbent filter media is a viable alternative to clay, carbon and melt-blown polypropylene for air and water treatment.

The MYCELX molecule was initially developed to destabilize emulsified droplets of oil formed following an oil spill, but engineers discovered the compound could be integrated into a variety of substrates while retaining all the compound’s novel properties.

The most salient of these properties is the ability to bind together and coagulate hydrocarbons, specifically altering oils and semi volatile organics into a cohesive viscoelastic mass that repels water. When the molecule is integrated into a filter, the viscoelasticity of the coagulated mass allows for extremely efficient capture without developing differential pressure across the filter.