Neusbot, the Light-Powered Film-Based Soft Robot, Could Clean Oil Spills with the Power of the Sun

A team of researchers from the University of California, Riverside, have proposed a novel way to clean up oil spills: soft robots powered entirely by light.

"Our motivation was to make soft robots sustainable and able to adapt on their own to changes in the environment. If sunlight is used for power, this machine is sustainable, and won’t require additional energy sources," explains UCR chemist Zhiwei Li of the team's work. “The [robotic] film is also re-usable."

Known as Neusbot, named for the neuston animal category that includes water striders, the soft robots are designed to float atop the water. The robots are made of a triple-layer film, with a hydrophobic layer at the bottom which forces it to the surface of the water and layers on top which convert light energy to heat in order to vaporize water and pulse their way around — a method of locomotion inspired by steam trains.

By itself, the current implementation of Neusbot doesn't do much: Exposed to the sun it moves forward, while adding a focused beam of light allows it to be steered. The team is hopeful the same technology could be used to clean up oil spills and other chemicals, though, by adding a fourth absorbent layer to the mix.

"Normally, people send ships to the scene of an oil spill to clean by hand. Neusbot could do this work like a robot vacuum, but on the water’s surface," Li explains. "We want to demonstrate these robots can do many things that previous versions have not achieved."

The team's work has been published under closed-access terms in the journal Science Robotics.