Functionalized multi-walled carbon nanotubes for oil spill cleanup from water

Thamer Adnan Abdullah,Muhammad Ali Mallah,Endre Domokos,Noor Al-Jammal,P C Le,Mustafa Aldulaimi,Tatjana Juzsakova,Sanaa A Hafad,Ali Dawood Salman,Rashed Taleb Rasheed

doi:10.1007/s10098-021-02104-0

Abstract

The growing global economy resulted in an incessant increase in transportation and exploitation of oil. Hence, the oil spillage has been considered a serious threat to aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems. Therefore, water purification has been considered a major challenge around the world. There are numerous classical methods available for oil removal from water, but owing to multiple defects and disadvantages, research efforts have focused to find such adsorbents which can improve oil adsorption capability. Traditional adsorbent material typically applied in oil removal includes activated carbon, organoclays, wool, zeolites, etc. These materials suffer from several drawbacks such as low absorption capacity, non-selective absorption, and complicated reusability, whereas nano-adsorbents offer multiple advantages such as having multiple sorption sites, large surface area, short intra-particle diffusion distance, tuneable pore size, and ease of low-temperature modification. Multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs) are extensively used adsorbent materials with a strong affinity for the removal of organic pollutants. The functionalization MWCNTs further increase the sorption capacity of adsorbents manifolds to remove organic materials. These nanocomposites are also compatible with green materials and considered environmentally friendly adsorbents. This review paper aims at providing an insight to understand the properties of the MWCNTs and their potential use to adsorb hydrocarbons from water. Moreover, the synthesis methods of those materials, their modification procedures including the functionalization with metal oxide nanoparticles, and applications are also discussed in detail.Graphic abstract

Highlights

The global economy continues to expand rapidly through the exploitation and production of crude oil; the transportation of oil and its derivatives potentially remains a serious threat to the environment (Li et al 2019a, b, c, d)
This review aims at exploring the potential of functionalized Multiwalled carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs) for the remediation of oil components from water
Since the transportation of oil results in several oil spillage, this problem has been regarded as a serious threat to the environment; among many other challenges, the oil spillages still remain a major ecological and environmental concern

Summary

Introduction

The global economy continues to expand rapidly through the exploitation and production of crude oil; the transportation of oil and its derivatives potentially remains a serious threat to the environment (Li et al 2019a, b, c, d). The oil spillages remain at the major ecological and environmental concern (Lin et al 2019) as Dubansky et al have reported that crude oil contamination of sensitive estuaries in Gulf coast is predictive of toxic impacts in exposed fish (Dubansky et al 2013). Oil spillages release volatile organic compounds (VOCs) and heavier hydrocarbons into the aquatic environment causing severe damage to the ecosystem (Liang et al 2014). The petroleum hydrocarbons, heavy metals, and other compounds fall within the category of primary pollutants which have severe impacts on living organisms due to their neuro-toxic and carcinogenic effects (Zhao et al 2018). The gravity of the situation made the treatment of oil spills an emerging contemporary problem and has sought the attention of researchers to work for the removal of organic contaminants and floating oils by developing novel cleanup methods (Al-Jammal and Juzsakova 2017)

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