Eni and MIT announce two new key research outcomes to control clean up oil spills

The President of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Susan Hockfield, and Eni CEO, Paolo Scaroni, met today at MIT headquarters in Cambridge, Massachussets to review the progress at the mid-way point of the joint energy research projects. They also identified additional areas of collaboration, including an expanded focus on technologies to stop uncontrolled well blow-out and to contain major oil spills.
The new, key research outcomes of the Eni-MIT partnership include new oil spill cleanup materials. The recent events in the Gulf of Mexico underscored the need for innovative drilling technologies and safety systems. Research in this arena focused on the use of “nano-sorbents‘. This successful research carried out at MIT uses special nano-scale materials to identify, assess, attract and capture pollutants from hydrocarbons, significantly reducing their environmental impact.
The partnership is focusing on a new important area: targeting novel technologies to bring under control and stop well blow-outs in critical drilling and environmental conditions, such as deepwater or arctic environments.
The Eni-MIT partnership, established in 2008, includes a suite of research projects designed to provide support and enhance some critical components of Eni’s core business, with particular emphasis on oil and gas production, as well as the Eni-MIT Solar Frontiers Center which comprises a project portfolio focused on advanced solar technologies.
Susan Hockfield and Paolo Scaroni also highlighted a joint project recent success developing a novel set of self-assembling molecules with the ability to quickly repair themselves. These molecules also have the property to turn sunlight into electricity and can “self-repair‘ the organic component of a solar cell damaged by sunlight; this innovative characteristic helps solve a common problem with solar cells.
Eni and MIT aim to expand the success of the partnership to date, combining Eni’s operating experience and technical capability with MIT’s top scientific capacity, research and innovation focus, and unique multi-disciplinary approach. Eni and MIT, also leveraging on Saipem’s excellent technological skills, aim to develop novel renewable technologies as well as breakthrough materials and systems to guarantee operational safety, full technical control and environmental protection for oil production, particularly in sensitive and frontier areas. The research from the Eni-MIT Solar Frontiers Center will also speed progress toward sustainable renewable energy production for the future.