Investigation of Modified Mangrove Bark on the Sorption of Oil in Water

Abstract

Today oil spills generally cause worldwide worry due to their damaging effects on environment. Use of agricultural wastes such as raw and modified mangrove barks (RhizophoraApiculata), as an abundant and low cost adsorbent for oil-products spill cleanup in aquatic systems, has been developed to control these spills. Sorption capacity can improve by modification of adsorbent. The modification significantly increased the hydrophobicity of the adsorbent. The raw mangrove bark was modified using fatty acid (Palmitic acid) to improve its adsorption capacity. Oil sorption capacity of the modified bark was studied and compared with the raw bark. Kinetic tests were conducted with a series of contact time. The kinetic studies show good correlation coefficients for a pseudo-first-order kinetic model. A correlation between surface functional groups of the adsorbent was studied by FTIR spectrum. The results gave the maximum adsorption capacity of 2640.00 ± 2.00 mg/g for Palmitic acid treated bark (PTB). The prepared adsorbent revealed the potential to use as a low-cost adsorbent in oil-spill clean-up.