VIDEO - Separate oil and water magnetically

MIT postdoc Shahriar Khushrushahi has devised a devilishly clever way of separating oil from water. His team saw the necessity for better separation technologies after noticing inefficiencies in the cleanup of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. His team simply combines magnetic substances with the oil and uses high-powered magnets to suck it up. These magnetic materials can later be removed. The video isn't clear about how scalable this project is, nor how difficult the process of "magnetizing" oil can be, but the technology remains a promising step in the right direction.