Oil retention capacity of industrial by-products

Abstract

Crude oil derivatives have been responsible to relevant damage to environmental and public health. Recently, biotechnology has been explored the use of new materials that offer environmentally friendly technologies as a sustainable strategy that will enhance the conditions to mitigate contaminated sites. This study was performed to evaluate the potential useful of the natural sorbents for diesel fuel, motor oil SAE 20W-50, and cooking oil removal from water. Six types of sorbents were investigated: Palm sawdust, pine sawdust, banana extrude were tested as cellulosic type of sorbents; human hair, canine hair and chicken feathers were tested as chitinous sorbents. A statistical analysis (p < 0.05) showed that Pine and canine hair sorbents have the highest index sorption regarding to by-products sorbents. The overall assessment showed that chitinous sorbents present a superior sorption capacity than cellulosic materials. Both chitinous and cellulosic sorbents showed the best sorption efficiency (p ≤ 0.05) to motor oil, followed to cooking oil. The diesel fuel was the hydrocarbon that showed the lowest sorption potential (5.33, 4.02, and 3.39, respectively). A significant difference was observed (p ≤ 0.05) at the slurry index, followed the next order: pine dust ≤ chicken feathers ≤ Moss ≤ canine hair. On other hand, some by-products showed medium index sorption, however these always have a good retention levels. The results suggest that the use of by-products tested area feasible technology of low-cost, and environmentally safe to remediation of contaminated sites by oil derivates.