Abstract
BTX stands for Benzene, Toluene, and Xylenes, which are volatile organic compounds contained in petroleum products such as gasoline. They have negative health effects and are sadly known for soil, air, and water contamination. This paper provides an investigation on BTX removal from open water systems like those represented by natural water bodies. In such systems, the evaporation process takes place, stealing the pollutants from the aqueous matrix by transferring them into the air, resulting in a secondary pollution. To prevent this situation, adsorption of these organic compounds on cellulose fibers, extracted from Spanish Broom vegetable, was studied. Raw and surface modified cellulose fibers were used for this purpose. The second ones were hydrophobized by two different green and low-cost functionalization systems (no solvent urethane functionalization and low pressure plasma treatments). Batch experiments were performed in an open system where BTX underwent two competing removing mechanisms: volatilization, and adsorption/desorption on/from the fibers dispersed in the water system. A mathematical model was implemented for the interpretation of the observed time-varying pollutant concentrations and the estimation of the kinetic constants for adsorption, desorption, and evaporation. The developed model, provided with the aforementioned parameters calibrated for each type of fibers, was then used for the prediction of their adsorption capacities both into open and closed systems.
Highlights
71% of the planet is covered by water
This work shows the first application of cellulosic fibers, extracted from Spartium Junceum vegetable species, for the purification of water polluted by BTX
The development of an “ad hoc” mathematical model for the interpretation of the time-varying observed pollutants concentration allowed the estimation of the adsorption, desorption, and evaporation kinetic constants with respect to the cellulose fibers, as well as the prediction of their adsorption capacities both into open and closed systems
Summary
71% of the planet is covered by water. Most of this water (>97%) is stored in the oceans, while the rest lies in the polar ice-caps and glaciers. Only a very small amount of water is accessible to humans, which is used for domestic, agricultural, and industrial purposes [2]. In the last hundred years, water consumption has dramatically increased compared to the available resources and, at the same time, environmental pollution has contributed to worsen its quality [3]. One of the major environmental problems is the remediation of the polluted water bodies, by hazardous chemicals such as Hydrophobic and Volatile Organic Compounds (HOCs and VOCs) [4]
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