With further research and a visit to the mechanic, we decided we could make a filter that would be nailed under the engine under the car which is where the oil leaks. We would place an absorbent material on a sheet of metal, which would absorb the oil that leaked, and nail it to the bottom of the car.
To find our absorbent material, we conducted an experiment. We tested 5 materials that we thought were very absorbent. We did this by placing each material on a metal frame over a newspaper and using a pipette to drip drops of real motor oil on each material, counting each drop and stopping when we saw one drop of oil drip onto the newspaper. We tested handyshammy, a type of cloth used to clean up food spills, burlap, sponge, cotton, and a diaper. It turned out, the diaper was the most absorbent! It could absorb over 2,600 drops of motor oil! So we built a prototype of our filter, by using a piece of styrofoam instead of the metal, and taking the outer layer off 2 diapers and pinning them to the styrofoam. However, we soon realized that the diaper was highly flammable and as the engine of the car gets hot, it could potentially catch on fire. So we did some more research and found that in Home Depot, there was a material called a metallic mesh. This could keep the diaper from catching on fire, but still keep the absorbency of the material. This mesh was also very cheap and so we bought some of it. We found that this did do the job. Because our filter was so cheap, we found out that the approximate price to buy it for a car is $30, and every replacement of the diapers after that would merely cost $1. Our solution hasn't actually been implemented anywhere yet, but we plan to patent it and find a way to implement it somewhere. |