World-first organic solution for inland oil spills using human hair MyZA

Having grown up on an Upington farm, veteran hair and makeover stylist Johan Nortje applied his eco-awareness to remodel an environmental solution, which most recently earned him kudos in the 2013 Step-Up Technology Innovation Competition.

Nortje, by no means a physicist, was inspired by an Alabama hairdresser’s discovery of human hair mats as a clean-up solution for volunteers cleaning up the tragic 1989 Valdez oil spill. Phil McCory’s solution involved stuffing hair into his wife’s stocking to test its sorbency on 4 litres of used motor oil in his son’s paddling pool.

Nortje, who started experimenting in his kitchen three years ago – driven to action by the 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil disaster, devised a world-first solution that is not made to float on water, but rather to prevent small inland oil spills, fit for industrial and consumer use.

Hair was always the perfect choice for Nortje, leading him to the creation of the product Acublot (accumulate and blot). Currently Acublot-collected hair, categorized as general waste, amounts to 24 tons per annum – this is quite significant, considering 300 salons in the Gauteng region only.

Human hair is a brilliant organic sorbent of hydrocarbon oils, making it useful across many industries, where it helps to improve workers’ safety and control spills. ACUBLOT mats help prevent and clean up used hydraulic and lubrication oil spills.

Acublot mats are made of an outer cover and an inner reusable cartridge. The inner cartridge is full of hair and can be mechanically pressed to get the oil out for resale.

The cartridge harnesses the adsorbing properties of hair and must be collected by a NORA-SA approved collector, which will safely remove the oil, cleaning the cartridge for recycling. Acublot partners, Oil Separation Solutions (AcuOSS), are collectors of used Acublot mats.

NORA is the oil recycling industry association co-ordinating and facilitating the environmentally responsible recovery, collection, transportation, storage, processing and use of used lubrication oils in South Africa, supported by the ROSE Foundation.

According to the annual baseline report for hazardous waste, 44% waste or used oil is recycled annually, which means that 67,000 tons of oil is landfilled yearly.

When you need a sorbent, one thing you look for is its ability to retain oil. The mats, depending on their size, adsorb between 1.2 and 12 litres of oil. These reusability and recycling factors are unique, as absorbent mats can only be used once.

Available in a variety of sizes and applications, the mats have an outer cover, with an inner re-usable cartridge that harnesses the adsorbing properties of hair and can be mechanically pressed to recover the adsorbed oil for resale.

Nortje’s invention has gained traction in new markets, with support from Sasol’s SME incubator – ChemCity, over the past three years. As sponsors of the Step-Up awards, ChemCity and the Technology Innovation Agency has provided Nortje with international ears for news of this innovation to spread.

On home soil, Nortje has already partnered with Pureology – an organic brand affiliated with the Green Cross, which installed hair boxes in salons to collect hair for the mats. Upstream, this has created a new industry of agents that collect and promote the hair reclamation across Gauteng salons. Nortje also has teams collecting reusable hair from landfills.

Downstream, Acublot runs a production facility and partners with OSS for Acublot mat and oil retrieval and recycling – both in Gauteng, as well as a distribution partnership with a civil engineering firm in Rustenburg, North West Province. The spent 100% burlap hessian cartridges can be used in worm farms, as compost and on mushroom farms productively – so the scope for cradle-to-cradle production of this natural product is perfect.

Nortje says: “My future focus is on engaging the shipping industry via the International Maritime Organisation and to introduce the product to the aviation industry for servicing of aeroplanes. Acublot is a green solution to oil pollution, where humans can come to the rescue with their own natural product.”

One of the most common uses for sorbents is to prevent and clean small oil spills in industry – for instance at automotive workshops and racetracks, as well as in remote mining or civil operations for machine and vehicle oil changes.

As a general indoor and outdoor housekeeping tool, use of the mats improves the safety of workers, prevents contamination and thus cost, and reduces users’ carbon footprint significantly. ACUBLOT mats are also ideal for home DIY specialists – vernacularly known as dads, to prevent surface oil spills and illegal toxic waste dumping.