A comparative investigation on the separation of crude oil from marine media with the aid of natural fibres

Abstract

The present research examines the adsorption characteristics of different types of natural sorbents for the removal of crude oil from sea water. Sorbent characterisation is done using SEM and FTIR analyses. The effect of different adsorption test factors such as contact time, adsorbent weight and initial concentration of crude oil has been investigated to obtain crude oil removal using arrowroot fibre, talipot palm fibre, newspaper, cocopeat and human hair. The maximum oil sorption capacities are found to be 5990 mg/g, 4650 mg/g, 5830 mg/g, 6710 mg/g and 4980 mg/g for the arrowroot fibre, talipot palm fibre, newspaper, cocopeat and human hair respectively. The maximum percentage oil removed are found to be 94.66%, 68.36%, 97.37%, 99.6% and 90.41% for arrow root fibre, talipot palm fibre, newspaper, cocopeat and human hair respectively. Oil adsorbency and water adsorbency are determined and the recycle study has been performed for all the selected natural adsorbents. The design of experiments has been carried out using Box -Behnken method in response surface methodology using Minitab 19.