title: Hydrophobic high surface area zeolites derived from fly ash for oil spill remediation.
abstract: Fly ash, a coal combustion byproduct with a predominantly aluminosilicate composition, is modified to develop an inexpensive sorbent for oil spill remediation. The as-produced fly ash is a hydrophilic material with poor sorption capacity. A simple two-step chemical modification process is designed to improve the oil sorption capacity. First, the fly ash was transformed to a zeolitic material via an alkali treatment, which increased the specific surface area up to 404 m(2) g(-1). Then, the material was surface functionalized to form a hydrophobic material with high contact angle up to 147° that floats on the surface of an oil-water mixture. The reported oil sorption capacities of X-type zeolite sorbent with different surface functionalization (propyl-, octyl-, octadecyl-trimethoxysilane and esterification) were estimated to 1.10, 1.02, 0.86, and 1.15 g g(-1), respectively. Oil sorption was about five times higher than the as-received fly ash (0.19 g g(-1)) and also had high buoyancy critical for economic cleanup of oil over water.
authors: Advanced Materials Processing and Analysis Center (AMPAC), Materials Science Engineering (MSE), 4000, Central Florida Boulevard, Orlando, Florida 32816, United States.
authors: Tamilselvan
authors: T
authors: Sakthivel
authors: David L
authors: DL
authors: Reid
authors: Ian
authors: I
authors: Goldstein
authors: Larry
authors: L
authors: Hench
authors: Sudipta
authors: S
authors: Seal
mesh_terms: D000327:Adsorption; D060729:Coal Ash / Q000737:chemistry*; D052918:Environmental Restoration and Remediation; D057927:Hydrophobic and Hydrophilic Interactions; D008855:Microscopy, Electron, Scanning; D059392:Petroleum Pollution; D059027:Recycling; D012821:Silanes / Q000737:chemistry; D013052:Spectrometry, X-Ray Emission; D013499:Surface Properties; D017641:Zeolites / Q000737:chemistry*
chemical_list: D060729:Coal Ash; D012821:Silanes; D017641:Zeolites; C071717:trimethoxysilane