Adsorption Studies of Oil Spill Clean-up Using Coconut Coir Activated Carbon (CCAC)

Ukpong Anwana Abel,Gumus Rhoda Habor,Oboh Innocent Oseribho

doi:10.11648/j.ajche.20200802.11

Ukpong Anwana Abel, Gumus Rhoda Habor + Show 1 more

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https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ajche.20200802.11

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Abstract

The adsorption of crude oil from water by using Potassium hydroxide (KOH) prepared from coconut coir activated carbon CCACKOH was investigated by batch adsorption under varying parameters such as adsorbent dosage, contact time, initial oil concentration, temperature and agitation speed. The morphological modification significantly increased the hydrophobicity of the adsorbent, thus creating a CCAC with a much better adsorption capacity for crude oil removal having a maximum adsorption capacity of 4859.5 mg/g at 304 K as evidently proven by FTIR and SEM analysis. The experimental results showed that the percentage of crude oil removal increased with an increase in adsorbent dosage, contact time and decrease in initial oil concentration. The experimental isotherm data were analysed using Langmuir, Freundlich, Temkin, Toth, Sip and Redlich-Peterson isotherm equations and the best fitted isotherm model was Freundlich model with a high correlation coefficient (R2 = 0.999). The kinetic data were properly fitted into various kinetic models with Pseudo-second order model showing best fit having a correlation coefficient (R2 = 0.999) and Boyd model revealed that the adsorption was controlled by internal transport mechanism and film-diffusion was the major mode of adsorption. The crude oil adsorption was chemisorption and endothermic in nature (ΔH° = 134 KJ/mol.K) and the positive value of entropy (ΔS° = 0.517 KJ/mol.K) showed an increase in disorder and randomness at the adsorbent-adsorbate interface during the adsorption of crude oil from water. The decrease in Gibbs energy (ΔG°) with increasing temperature indicated an increase in the feasibility and spontaneity of the adsorption at higher temperatures. The prepared adsorbent showed significant capability to be used as a low-cost, re-generable and eco-friendly adsorbent in oil spill clean-up.

Highlights

Since the evolution and advancement in the field of oil and gas technology, the hazards associated with oil spills to marine and freshwater environments have significantly increased due to the increase in production, exploration, transportation, distribution, storage and other related processes of crude oil all over the world
Numerous ecological disasters have been caused by undesirable petroleum products spills, for example in 1970 and 1971 – the Gulf of Mexico drilling rig incidents; 1978 – the breakdown of the Piper Alpha Platform in the North Sea; 1989 – the Exxon Valdez spill in Alaska; 1991 – operation Desert Storm that released a huge amount of oil into the Arabian Gulf; 1999 – the Erika spill in France; 2002 – the Prestige spill in Spain; 2010 – the British Petroleum (BP) Deepwater Horizon spill in the Gulf of Mexico, and regular petroleum leakages in the Niger Delta region of Nigeria since 1958 [3]
These results demonstrate that the thermodynamic behaviours of an adsorption system are dependent on the type of adsorbent and adsorbate being investigated

Summary

Introduction

Since the evolution and advancement in the field of oil and gas technology, the hazards associated with oil spills to marine and freshwater environments have significantly increased due to the increase in production, exploration, transportation, distribution, storage and other related processes of crude oil all over the world. Ukpong Anwana Abel et al.: Adsorption Studies of Oil Spill Clean-up Using Coconut Coir Activated Carbon (CCAC). Agricultural sorbents are cheap, efficient, environmentally friendly, and easy to deploy Their efficiency is dependent on sorption capacity, density, wettability, retention rate and recyclability and examples are cotton, straws, corn cobs, coconut shells, kenaf, kapok fibres, rice coir and silkworm cocoon, hay, sawdust, bagasse, gorse, and dried palm fronds [8]. It is of imperative importance to study the applicability of using these biodegradable waste materials as natural sorbents for oil spill treatment and comparing them with other methods of oil spill clean-up from different water surfaces rather than disposing them off [9]. The objective of this research is to determine the adsorption capacity and % removal of crude oil spill using coconut coir activated carbon (CCAC)

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