Crude oil spills are of global concern because of their potential to cause massive water pollution and the destruction of aquatic life. The current technologies for oil spill cleanup only focus on impact mitigation and ignore crude oil recovery. There is therefore a need for an innovative technology that generates materials with crude oil recovery capabilities. Since manufactured materials have shown promising capabilities for recovering crude oil and treating water at the same time, this study examines and develops a strategy for manufacturing magnetic hexagonal boron nitride (h-BN) nanostructured composites-a high-performance material that can be used to both clean water and recover crude oil for further use after a crude oil spill. This manufacturing technique is unique as it consists of a single step and contemplates h-BN synthesis at 1300 K compared to 2275 K used previously. The material produced is capable of absorbing crude oil up to 53 times its own weight, employing only a magnetic field for the recovery. Evaluation of adsorption isotherms using model molecules demonstrated that absorption, rather than adsorption, is the dominant mechanism responsible for crude oil uptake.