Treatment of Water Polluted by Oil Spill by Ferromagnetic Particles

Abstract

Water constitutes 71% of the Earth's surface, and up to 60% of the human body. The amount of water that humans consume, and need depends on the age, gender and the location. According to many studies, oil spill is considered as one of the most common environmental disasters, resulting in the destruction of ecosystems and significant losses for the economies of the countries that suffer from leaked oil, not only because of the price of the leaked oil but also because of the extinction of many marine organisms that live in these environments. The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia exports a huge amount of crude oil, varies between 6.935 and 7.737 million barrels per day, leading to rise oil pollution that may harm the vital marine environment. The current paper aims to examine the effect of micro and nano-ferromagnetic in the treatment of water polluted by oil spill. The method is based on mixing the oil with ferromagnetic particles and using the neodymium magnets to separate the particles from the oil. The experiment was repeated by changing the concentration of ferromagnetic particles, that are able to purify water from oil at rates ranging from 154 for microparticles to 185 for nanoparticles. The properties of seawater treated with ferromagnetic particles were identified in both parts by measuring the acidity value and identifying the compounds present in the samples, followed by mechanical experimentation. Results showed the efficacy of purifying seawater from oil leakage using ferromagnetic nanoparticles as well as the extent to which ferromagnetic materials can be separated from oil by examining the components of the water after purification. Also, this method is safe, highly efficient, and cheap for purifying sea water from oil pollution. In addition, the acidity of the water was not affected using ferromagnetic particles, as it ranged around 8.5 for all samples.