Wheat husk-based sorbent as an economical solution for removal of oil spills from sea water

Abstract

Oil spills are a significant threat to the marine ecosystem that requires immediate removal from the oceanic environment. Many technologies have been employed to clean up oil spills. Of these, adsorption has scored a prominent success due to the high efficiency, economic viability, environmental friendship, and ease of application. The utilization of agricultural waste to produce biosorbents have been considered as an ecofriendly and efficient approach for removing oil. Thus, a new low-cost oil adsorbent was prepared via esterification of the wheat straw (Str) with a hydrophobic benzoyl group, the resulting copolymer (Str-co-Benz) was characterized by FTIR, TGA, DSC, and SEM and used at laboratory scale. The oil spill cleanup process was conducted using a crude oil-natural seawater system under different adsorption conditions such as oil concentration, adsorbent dose, agitation time and speed. Equilibrium studies were performed to determine the capacity of the prepared materials for crude oil adsorption. Langmuir and Freundlich adsorption models were used to describe the experimental isotherms. The reliability of the data was examined and evaluated via application of response surface methodology program. The results showed that oil adsorption followed a pseudo-second-order kinetic model and fitted well with Langmuir model with a maximum adsorption capacity of 10.989 and 12.786 g/g for Str and (Str-co-Benz), respectively. Overall, the modified wheat husk is an effective platform for removing oil from marine ecosystems due to low cost, biodegradability, simple synthesis and fast removal. Moreover, the resulted solid can be used as a fuel in some industrial processes such as steam boilers and brick production incinerators.

A Comparative Study of Cr(VI) Sorption by Aureobasidium pullulans AKW Biomass and Its Extracellular Melanin: Complementary Modeling with Equilibrium Isotherms, Kinetic Studies, and Decision Tree Modeling

“…The calculated R L value was found to be 0.749 and 0.706 for the used fungal biomass and the extracellular melanin, respectively. The biosorption process’s nature is distinguished by the R L value, e.g., unfavorable R L > 1); linear (R L = 1); favorable (0 < R L < 1); irreversible (R L = 0) [ 67 , 68 ].…”

“…The calculated R L value was found to be 0.749 and 0.706 for the used fungal biomass and the extracellular melanin, respectively. The biosorption process's nature is distinguished by the R L value, e.g., unfavorable R L > 1); linear (R L = 1); favorable (0 < R L < 1); irreversible (R L = 0) [67,68]. The obtained R L value indicated that the Cr(VI) biosorption onto the used fungal biomass or the extracellular melanin was a favorable process.…”

Pristine coconut husk biowaste and 2-ethylhexyl acrylate/methyl acrylate-based novel oleophilic gels for oil spill cleanup

“…23 Similarly, various sorbent materials were synthesized and used for oil spill cleanup. [24][25][26][27][28][29] Crosslinking and various polymer analogous reactions have been used to tailor these bio-wastes for such oil spill applications. 30,31 Using biowaste can also serve to tackle another major problem: its disposal and environmental pollution.…”