BRISTOL, England, Jan. 24 (UPI) -- British researchers say a new magnetic soap could be used to help clean up oil spills by applying a magnetic field to areas containing the soap.
The new formulation is similar to ordinary soap but contains iron atoms which can help form tiny particles that are easily removed magnetically, they said.
"If you'd have said about 10 years ago to a chemist: 'Let's have some soap that responds to magnets', they'd have looked at you with a very blank face," researcher Julian Eastoe of the University of Bristol told BBC News.
"We were interested to see, if you went back to the chemical drawing board with the tool-kit of modern synthetic chemistry, if you could...design one," he said.
Eastoe and his colleagues started with detergent molecules "very similar to what you'd find in your kitchen or bathroom," he said, and found a way to simply add iron atoms into the molecules.
The droplets that the soap formed were attracted to a magnet, just as iron filings would be, he said.
With further development, the researchers said, the soap could be used to clean up oil spills and waste water.
"We have uncovered the principle by which you can generate this kind of material and now it's back to the drawing board to make it better," Eastoe said.
