EPS is a major constituent of plastic waste. Reuse of waste EPS which is non-biodegradable, to useful products is a way of effective waste management. Oil is one of the most important energy sources but oil spill accidents often take place during the oil utilization process, resulting in threats to the environment. We report the use of EPS waste to obtain an adsorbent material to cleanup crude oil spill from water. The effects of major factors such as sorption time, adsorbent surface areas, kind of surface (smooth or rough) and thermo-modification and mechanical modification (punching holes) were investigated. The experiments carried out with about 0.900 g EPS sorbent were tested for oil sorption for 5 to 120 min at 400 g oil only and at 50 g oil over 800 mL water surface. Oil sorption increases with increasing the sorption time's and surface areas. Surface areas increase with cutting the EPS pieces with serrated edge knife or/and cutting the EPS to 2, 4, 6 and 8 pieces.Oil sorption capacity (OSC) increased with increasing surface area, and so two pieces have OSC of 1.733 g/g more than one piece of 1.208 g/g of the same weight (0.900 g) and sorption time (5 min). Rough surface of EPS adsorbed more oil than smooth surface. Most of adsorptions were taking place at first 5-15 min. Thermo-modification (50-90°C) has no significant effect on oil sorption. Making holes by punching nails (0.1 mm diameter) into EPS contributed to increases OSC to 2.538 g/g for 5 min sorption time (1 piece). Increasing the nails diameter to 1.65 mm resulted to increase in OSC to 3.280 g/g for 5 min sorption time (1 piece) and 7.998 g/g for 6 pieces. The results of investigation indicated that the oil sorption mechanism of EPS waste meanly adsorption with slow capillary action. Oleophilic action between EPS and oil is the mean force governing the oil adsorption into EPS. The use of EPS waste in oil spill cleanup will reduce pollution in two ways. Reducing the garbage and oil spill remediation.
Among 64 bacterial strains isolated in this study, the best two of biosurfactant-producing bacteria were selected and identified based on the phenotypic properties and molecular approach based on 16S rRNA having 100% similarity to the gram-negative Enterobacter aerogenes B19 strain bacteria and rode gram-positive strain Bacillus cereus ISU-02 in the Nucleotide database of the National Center for Biotechnology Information. The study showed that two selected isolates gave the highest positive results that were used to investigate the biosurfactant production including: interfacial reduction, foaming activity, hemolytic activity, CTAB agar plate, drop collapse assay, oil displacement test and emulsification index E24%. Both Bacillus cereus ISU-02 strain and Enterobacter aerogenes B19 strain have reduced the interfacial tension to 27.61 and 28.93, respectively. Biosurfactants produced from both isolates were tested for oil recovery using spontaneous imbibition process. Bacillus cereus ISU-02 strain gave the highest oil recovery of 66.9% for rock permeability of 843 mD, followed by Enterobacter aerogenes B19 strain with oil recovery of 34% for rock permeability 197 mD, while the lowest rate of oil recovery was 12.1% for FW with permeability of 770 mD. An additional oil rate reached to 7.9% has been recovered from the residual oil when the core plug that was treated with formation water alone was retreated with the cell free biosurfactant supernatant. Use of the new biosurfactants has improved oil recovery better than use of formation water alone or formation water with the commercial surfactant SDS.Publisher's Note Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
One of the most efficient means for the removal of spilled oil from either land or sea is the use of sorbent. Date Palm Fibers (DPF) is a natural sorbent that exhibits good sorption characteristics although the relationship between fiber age and oil absorption has not been reported. Oil spill remediation process is presented and mechanism and selectivity of sorption was discussed. Oil spill simulation was carried out by placing 40 gm crude oil on surface of about 800 mL water at 1000 mL beaker. The removal of crude oil from water by 1 gm raw DPF as sorbent was investigated by batch sorption after varying contact times (5-120 min), oil film thickness (7-47 mm) and the use of two different age fibers (old and fresh fibers) at 5 min drainage time. Gas chromatography study of oil involved in the sorption process was done to determined the molecules sorbed by DPF sorbent. Scanning Electron Microscopy analysis for DPF was also take place. OSC of the two DPF sorbent increased with increasing contact times being 4.53 gm• oil/gm• sorbent for 5 min contact time while for fresh fiber was 6.286 gm• oil/gm• sorbent. The sorption rate was very fast for both sorbents. At 2 min sorption times we get 4.963 and 6.737 gm. oil/gm. sorbent for the aged and fresh fibers respectively at 2 min draining time. The results show that fresh fibers sorbed more oil than old fibers. This is attributed to the new fibers having a lower crystalline structure than the old fibers. The fresh fibers have more cavities and hollows than the old one as shown by Scanning Electron Microscopy, in which cross sectional images show multi lumens and the side images has a rough surface with large size cavities. Analysis of sorbed oils by new DPF with gas chromatography after four successive sorptions of the same crude oil at sorption time of 30 min to identify the oil components sorbed. The results showed that C2-C4 compounds were completely sorbed by DPF during the four sorptions process using 1 gm. each, e.g. total 4 gm. After 4 sorption cycles, only 4.80% of pentane remained while C6-C8 compounds were reduced by 63.70%. This works showed that the DPF have a good performance as low cost, biodegradable and environmental friendly sorbent for the removal of oil from water with excellent selectivity toward small molecules compounds. The fresh fiber prove to be superior sorbent for crude oil over the old one. Since PDF are naturally weaved and rectangular mesh net of about 30×40 cm2 area, it will have high sorption efficiency and easily removed from spill site.
EPS is a major constituent of plastic waste. Reuse of waste EPS which is non-biodegradable, to useful products is a way of effective waste management. Oil is one of the most important energy sources but oil spill accidents often take place during the oil utilization process, resulting in threats to the environment. We reported the use of EPS waste to obtain an adsorbent material to cleanup crude oil spill from water. The effects of major factors such as sorption time, adsorbent surface areas, kind of surface (smooth or rough) and thermo-modification and mechanical modification (punching holes) were investigated on laboratory experiments and presented at ADIPEC 2014( Abu Dhabi International Petroleum Exhibition & Conference, 10-13 Nov., 2014, Session 52 Environment, SPE 172000-MS). The laboratory experiments carried out with about 0.9 g EPS sorbent for oil sorption times of 5 to 120 min at 350 g oil only and at 100 g oil over 500 mL water. The sorbent were punched with holes of 1.65 mm diameter. To verify the above laboratory experiments a field study for oil spill cleanup at crude oil pond from a rupture pipeline in Basrah was conducted. About 40 g EPS waste of small pieces (0.100-0.200 g) packed in 40x30 cm mesh net plastic bags. More than 40 bags were placed on the surface of a pond containing the spill crude oil over water. The pond was of about 6 meter diameter with oil layer of about 1.0 cm thickness. The bags were agitated manually after placing it on the oil surface to increase oil distribution to all EPS pieces. Oil sorption Capacity (OSC) of EPS in the field application increased with the increasing of the sorption times. The oil sorption was measured after 30 min sorption time and then every 15 min till 150 min. OSC of 43- 53 g oil/ g EPS sorbent for a sorption time of 30- 150 min respectively, were determined. The OSC are about 4 times the maximum OSC of the laboratory tests. The increasing in OSC of field application over laboratory tests due to utilization of all EPS 6 surfaces in place of one surface in laboratory tests, using lower density EPS and high density crude oil. The use of EPS waste in oil spill cleanup will reduce pollution in two ways, remediation of oil spill and reduce the landfill area due EPS waste
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.
hi@scite.ai
10624 S. Eastern Ave., Ste. A-614
Henderson, NV 89052, USA
Copyright © 2024 scite LLC. All rights reserved.
Made with 💙 for researchers
Part of the Research Solutions Family.