title: Development of oil-spill sorbent from straw biomass waste: Experiments and modeling studies.
abstract: The recovery of oil spilled on land or water has become an important issue due to environmental regulations. Canadian biomasses as fibrous materials are naturally renewable and have the potential to absorb oil-spills at different ranges. In this work, four Canadian biomasses were examined in order to evaluate their oil affinities and study parameters that could affect oil affinity when used as sorbent, such as average particle size, surface coating and reusability. Moreover, one oil sorption model was adopted and coupled with another developed model to approximate and verify the experimental findings of the oil sorbent biomasses. At an average particle size of 150-1000 μm, results showed that barley straw biomass had the highest absorbency value at 6.07 g/g, while flax straw had the lowest value at 3.69 g/g. Wheat and oat straws had oil absorbency values of 5.49 and 5.00 g/g, respectively. An average particle size of 425-600 μm indicated better absorbency values for oat and wheat straws. Furthermore, the thermal stability study revealed major weight recovery for two flame retardant coatings at hemicellulose and lignocellulose degradation temperature ranges. It was also found that oat straw biomass could be regenerated and used for many sorption/desorption cycles, as the reusability experiment showed only a 18.45% reduction in the oil absorbency value after six consecutive cycles. The developed penetration absorbency (PA) model showed oat straw adsorbed oil at the inter-particle level; and, the results of the sorption capacity model coupled with the PA model excellently predicted the oil sorption of raw and coated oat straws.
authors.affiliation: Department of Chemical and Petroleum Engineering, Schulich School of Engineering, University of Calgary, Calgary, AB, T2N 1N4, Canada. Electronic address: mtijani@ucalgary.ca.
authors.forename: Mansour M
authors.initials: MM
authors.lastname: Tijani
authors.affiliation: Department of Chemical and Petroleum Engineering, Schulich School of Engineering, University of Calgary, Calgary, AB, T2N 1N4, Canada. Electronic address: aaqsha@ucalgary.ca.
authors.forename: Aqsha
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Aqsha
authors.affiliation: Department of Chemical and Petroleum Engineering, Schulich School of Engineering, University of Calgary, Calgary, AB, T2N 1N4, Canada. Electronic address: nader.mahinpey@ucalgary.ca.
authors.forename: Nader
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Mahinpey
mesh_terms: D000327:Adsorption; D018533:Biomass; D002170:Canada; D005411:Flame Retardants; D008031:Lignin / Q000737:chemistry*; D008962:Models, Theoretical; D010316:Particle Size; D059392:Petroleum Pollution / Q000032:analysis*; D013499:Surface Properties; D014866:Waste Products
chemical_list: D005411:Flame Retardants; D014866:Waste Products; C036909:lignocellulose; D008031:Lignin
keywords: Biomass; Flame retardant; Oil absorbency; Penetration absorbency; Sorption capacity; Thermogravimetric analysis