Coco Peat as Agricultural Waste Sorbent for Sustainable Diesel-Filter System

Abstract

Oil spill incidents are hazardous and have prolonged damage to the marine environment. Management and spill clean-up procedures are practical and rapid, with several shortcomings. Coco peat (CP) and coco fibre (CF) are refined from coconut waste, and their abundance makes them desirable for diesel spillage treatment. Using a filter-based system, the selectivity of coco peat sorbent was tested using CP, CF and peat-fibre mix (CPM). CP exhibited maximal diesel sorption capacity with minimal seawater uptake, thus being selected for further optimisation analysis. The heat treatment considerably improved the sorption capacity and efficiency of diesel absorbed by CP, as supported by FTIR and VPSEM–EDX analysis. Conventional one-factor-at-a-time (OFAT) examined the performance of diesel sorption by CP under varying parameters, namely temperature, time of heating, packing density and diesel concentration. The significant factors were statistically evaluated using response surface methodology (RSM) via Plackett–Burman design (PB) and central composite design (CCD). Three significant (p < 0.05) factors (time, packing density and diesel concentration) were identified by PB and further analysed for interactions among the parameters. CCD predicted efficiency of diesel absorbed at 59.92% (71.90 mL) (initial diesel concentration of 30% v/v) and the experimental model validated the design with 59.17% (71.00 mL) diesel sorbed at the optimised conditions of 14.1 min of heating (200 °C) with packing density of 0.08 g/cm3 and 30% (v/v) of diesel concentration. The performance of CP in RSM (59.17%) was better than that in OFAT (58.33%). The discoveries imply that natural sorbent materials such as CP in oil spill clean-up operations can be advantageous and environmentally feasible. This study also demonstrated the diesel-filter system as a pilot study for the prospective up-scale application of oil spills.

Utilisation of Oil Palm’s Empty Fruit Bunch Spikelets for Oil-Spill Removal

“…When the reactive sites of sorbents were saturated with oil molecules, equilibrium was reached, and desorption occurred [51]. These findings revealed that the saturation of sorbent occurred at a 25% oil concentration, which coincides with the findings by Verasoundarapandian et al [7]. Figure 6.…”

“…Less availability of space compound at high packing density (0.11 g/cm 3 ) to adsorb oil is the main reason for the decrease in oil absorbed efficiency [48]. Similar observations have been reported previously by Verasoundarapandian et al [7], Taufik et al [11], Khalid et al [39] and Abel et al [49]. In addition, the development of porosity between the fibre was increased in a lower fibre packing density (0.06 and 0.07 g/cm 3 ) due to non-compacted samples having no sufficient capillary pressure to absorb oil [39,50].…”

“…To reinforce the weak surface properties and improve the interface of the fibre matrix, a thermal treatment modification that reduces the polar components was used [38]. Previous research has proven that the absorbent efficiency increases in heat-treated samples [7,11,[39][40][41][42]. Thermal treatment, which leads to the modification of the fibre surface, supports a more significant fibre interaction by successfully decreasing the water absorption [43,44].…”

“…To remove oil pollution contaminants from the polluted sites, physical, chemical and biological remediation methods can be implemented. Natural organic sorbents derived from agricultural biomass have recently attracted interest due to their efficacy in removing oil from water [1,[5][6][7]. The freely available, inexpensive, effective, non-toxic and almost 100% biodegradable EFB waste makes it a preferable sorbent for oil removal [8].…”

“…Agricultural waste as a biosorbent is promising as it produces no secondary pollution and has no negative effects on the ecosystem. The lignocellulosic sorbent materials that are proven to have good results in removing oil pollution include cotton [9], palm fibres [10], rice straw [11] and fruit peels [7]. The current procedures for cleaning up an oil spill are to use absorbent booms with a blend of synthetic and natural sorbent materials [12].…”