Title: Evaluation of Biomass materials in oil adsorption

Based on our literature review, we have devised the following scope of experimentation. 1) Literature review 2) Characterization of various biomass materials 3) Treatment of various biomass materials to help increase in its adsorption properties. 4) Selection of best biomass material and treatment method for adsorption of oil. Determining the effect of up scaling and down-scaling the product. 5) Development of a prototype. 6) Testing of prototype. 1.1 Literature review

1.2 Characterization of various biomass materials 1.2.1 Materials We have researched on various sources, below are the list of materials which can be used a bio-sorbent in oil spill clean up techniques. Recycled wool-based non-woven material (Sayed and Zayed, 2006, Radeti et al., 2003) 2. Onion and garlic peel (Sayed and Zayed, 2006) 3. Rice Straw(Sun et al., 2002) 4. Hydrophobic Aquatic plant, Salvinia sp. (Ribeiro et al., 2003) 5. Leaves, guard, coir fiber, sawdust, sisal, silk floss (Annunciado et al., 2005) 6. Barley Straw (Husseien et al., 2009) 7. Kapok fibers(Abdullah et al., 2010) 8. Reed canary grass (Pasila, 2004) 9. Rice husk (Ribeiro et al., 2003, Khan et al., 2004) 10. Hair For our research, we would like to focus on oil adsorption properties of rice straw, rice husk, human hair, sugar cane, and seaweed. 1.2.2 Sorbent properties According to (Ceylan et al., 2009), the properties of good oil adsorption are listed as below, 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. High oleophilic/ hydrophobicity Great active surface area: weight ratio High buoyancy Reusable High uptake capacity High rate of uptake High retention over time High desorption 1.

We will follow the above properties as guideline for our testing and characterization. On top of the above properties, we also added that the material should be cheap, easily available, biodegradable, and non-toxic.

1.2.3 Test Properties Oleophilic/ Hydrophobicity Properties Test procedure Equipment/Materials In this experimentation a sample of approximately 1.0 g was placed in a beaker I. Beaker with 20 ml of water and with sufficient agitation. Following this, hexane was II. Deionised water added and thebeaker agitated for 3 min. The mixture was then let stand for 5 III. Hexane min, the time necessary for separation of the phases. The quantity of material IV. Magnetic mixer transferred to the organic phase was determined by filtration followed by V. Stopwatch subsequent drying and weighing. The results are expressed in terms of the proportion of material transferred to the organic phase. These values are estimations of the degree of hydrophobicity (or oleophilicity) of the materials. (Ceylan et al., 2009, Ribeiro et al., 2003) The surface areas of the biomass were determined by a methylene blue adsorption method. Equal volumes of 100 ml of solutions of methylene blue of various concentrations were agitated in the presence of 0.1 g of sorbent for 1 h at 30 C and then let stand for 24 h. The concentrations of the solutions after this time interval were determined using an UV visible light spectrophotometer, reading at 660 nm. The color change followed a Langmuir isotherm model for mono layer adsorption. The surface area of the sample could then be calculated from saturation adsorption assuming a cross sectional area of the methylene blue molecule to be 108 A2. (Van Den Hul and Lyklema, 1967) a dish was filled with water to a depth of 8 cm, and 10 g of the sorbent was placed in a basket containing a mesh bottom with 1 mm openings. Then the basket was lowered into the dish and covered for 15 min. At the end of the test, the floated sorbent mass was measured to calculate thebuoyancy percentage. (Ribeiro et al., 2000) I. II. III. IV. V. VI. Beaker Deionised water methylene blue Magnetic mixer Stopwatch UV-visible light spectrophotomet er

Surface Area

Buoyancy

I. II. III.

dish/small vessel electronic balance deionized water

Uptake Capacity

Static System

For the sorption experiments, crude oil was poured into a 100-ml beaker containing 80 ml of seawater. After that, 0.5 g of the fibrous material was gently and evenly placed onto the oil surface. After a certain period of time, namely, 5, 20, 40, 60 and 1440 min (24 h), the material was removed with the aid of a nylon collector, which was then placed on the top of a filter paper, being allowed drainage under vacuum for 5 min before weighing. All tests were carried outat 301Candallweighingusedananalytical balance. The sorption was calculated as the ratio of sorbed material to dry sorbent mass (S0), sorption = (St -S0)/ S0, where St is the total mass of sorbed samples. Thus, sorption is given in unities of g/g of dry sorbent, being the sorbent the various vegetable fibers used.(Annunciado et al., 2005) Water content was determined by distillation with a mixture of toluence and xylene (20/80 v/v) as a solvent in accordance with ASTM95-05 (not available in SP Library) (Radeti et al., 2003)

i) ii) iii) iv) v) vi) vii) viii)

Seawater Vacuum filter Analytical balance Filter paper Magnetic stirrer Distillation unit Toluence chemical Xylene chemical

Dynamic System Dry System

Similar to static system, except that system is agitated using a magnetic stirrer to simulate wave/wind action. (Radeti et al., 2003) Similar to static system, except that no water is added at all, to project a maximum uptake capacity of the materials. (Radeti et al., 2003). Distillation test not needed.

Rate of uptake Retention over time

Following the approach of Uptake Capacity listed above. Following up the approach of uptake capacity. After the 24 hours test, the adsorbent material is allow to rest on stacks of pre-weighted filter paper. The weight of the adsorbent material is weighed 5, 20, 40, 60and 1440 minutes.

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