Abstract
Abstract The purpose of this work was to evaluate the efficiency of oil sorption of silica particles modified by three different types of cationic polymers and a cationic surfactant. Low-molecular-weight polyethyleneimine (LPEI), high-molecular-weight polyethyleneimine (HPEI), polydiallyldimethylammonium chloride (PDM), and cetyltrimethylammonium bromide (CTAB) were used to modify the silica particles and then compared their performances for oil removal. The scanning electron microscope and zeta potential measurements were used to analyze the surface characteristics of unmodified and modified silica particles. Adsorptions of motor oil and palm oil on the modified silica particles have been investigated under various parameters such as the silica particle size, the oil concentration, the polymer/surfactant concentrations, and the pH. The results have shown that the modified silica particles enhanced the oil sorption ability by approximately 10–20 times depending on the size of silica particles, pH, and the type of polymer/surfactant used when compared with the unmodified silica particles. The highest palm oil adsorption values of LPEI-silica, HPEI-silica, PDM-silica, CTAB-silica, and unmodified silica were 2.40, 2.10, 1.95, 1.50, and 0.15 g/gsilica, respectively. Moreover, the oil sorption of the modified silica particles was increased by approximately 30–50% for the smallest-sized silica particles.
Highlights
Wastewater treatment is currently an important aspect of investigations to meet the targets for sustainable development and clean technology
The investigations on the modification of silica particles by cationic polymers/cationic surfactant are carried out to evaluate their use for an application on oil removal
Silica particles are modified by immersion in each of the cationic polymer solutions or the cationic surfactant solution and subsequently dried in an oven at 80 °C
Summary
Wastewater treatment is currently an important aspect of investigations to meet the targets for sustainable development and clean technology. There are several methods available for the treatment of oil–water emulsions, for example, the coagulation/flocculation followed by air flotation and chemical de-emulsification (Welz et al 2007). These methods are considered as primary methods for water treatment. Adsorption is one of the effective methods for oil spill/oil–water emulsion removal. Various adsorption materials such as plant materials (Deschamps et al 2003), fabric (Anupriyanka et al 2020), foam (Ng et al 2020), polymeric membranes (Krasian et al 2019), bentonite organoclays, and vermiculite (Mueller et al 2003) have been examined for their oil adsorption capacities. Silica in particulate form is an essential biocompatible material that makes it a suitable candidate for several applications when assisted by the surface modification treatment, such as drug delivery (Slowing et al 2008), encapsulating agent for magnetic resonance imaging (Kim et al 2008), dye removal (Ebadi & Rafati 2015), and oil adsorption (Santos et al 2018)
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