Abstract: One or more water- and oil-porous containers or sacks are made of a pair of mesh sheets affixed together and stiffened around their perimeter. The sacks can be partially filled with a multitude of tubular bodies made of an oil-entrapping polymer, which have their longest dimension parallel to an axial hole. A preferred material is composed of a combination of SBS and EPDM, formed by an extrusion technique, to create highly fissured generally cylindrical bodies. The sacks may be deployed in areas where oil is floating on water, such as where oil has spilled from tankers on oceans, seas, lakes, or rivers. When the bodies are afloat, oily water can pass through the axial holes of and around the bodies, maximizing the surface area contacted by the oil and minimizing gel blocking. After a time sufficient for the bodies in the sacks to adsorb oil, the sacks can be collected. Various deployment and collection methods are disclosed.

Abstract: The present invention relates to liquid coating compositions that absorb near infrared electromagnetic radiation. The coating compositions include a near infrared absorbing agent, a carrier vehicle, and a solvent system. The invention is also directed to a method of reducing the reflection of near infrared radiation from a surface in which a liquid coating composition comprising a near infrared absorbing agent, a carrier vehicle, and a solvent system is applied to the surface and the solvent system is removed, leaving a coating with a thickness of about 0.25 mils to 2 mils. The present invention further relates to a surface having a coating comprised of a near infrared absorbing compound and a carrier vehicle.