Research article Evaluation of heavy crude oil from a water-oil model system as starting material for the preparation of adsorbents type NaY zeolite-templated carbon Cindy J. Elles-P  erez a , Amner Mu ~ noz-Acevedo b , Andr  es Guzm  an a, * , Hernando Camargo c , Jos  e Henao d a Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Universidad del Norte, km 5 via Pto. Colombia, P.O. Box 1569-51820, Barranquilla, Atl antico, Colombia b Department of Chemistry and Biology, Universidad del Norte, km 5 via Pto. Colombia, P.O. Box 1569-51820, Barranquilla, Atl antico, Colombia c Faculty of Environmental Chemistry, Universidad Santo Tom as sede Bucaramanga, Cr 18 #9-27, Bucaramanga, Santander, Colombia d School of Chemistry, Universidad Industrial de Santander, Cr 27 Cl 9, Bucaramanga, Santander, Colombia article info Article history: Received 10 November 2016 Received in revised form 5 March 2017 Accepted 16 March 2017 Keywords: Mesoporous carbons ZTC materials Heavy oil NaY zeolite Oil-water model abstract In this work, NaY zeolite is explored as a possible “template” to obtain porous materials type ZTC from the adsorption of heavy crude oil in a water-oil model system (emulsion). In order to produce the ad- sorbents, a cationic surfactant is selected to facilitate the adsorption of the crude oil into the pores of the zeolite and to get the composite, which was activated with controlled thermal treatments (T: 700 e800  C and t: 0.5e1 h) in inert conditions (N 2 gaseous). The starting materials, composite and porous carbons were characterized using structural/surface analysis techniques (API Gravity, SARA, IR, XRD, XRF, TGA, Langmuir isotherms, BET and SEM). The results showed that four types of mesoporous carbons were produced with specific surface areas between 70 ± 1m 2 /g and 220 ± 3m 2 /g, average pore volumes between 0.144 cm 3 /g and 0.40 cm 3 /g and average pore widths between 4.9 nm and 8.3 nm. The acti- vation conditions of 800  C and 1 h allowed to make the carbonaceous material with the best surface characteristics (220 ± 3m 2 /g, 0.27 cm 3 /g, and 4.9 nm). Therefore, it is concluded that under assay conditions employed, the heavy crude oil, as a mixed model (water-oil), from an aqueous environment is a starting material suitable for preparation of “mesoporous” carbons. © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction The oil industry has been of great importance for being one of the main sources of energy production and in the world, daily ca. 93.7 million barrels are consumed (US. Energy Information Administration, 2016). However, this industry has been affected by accidents that have caused some oil spills and environmental disasters (1970e2015); during this period more than 40 million barrels of oil were spilled into the sea (ITOPF, 2015). Reports of accidents in the last decades includes clogging of the Exxon Valdez boat on the coasts of Alaska (Fukuyama et al., 2014), the explosion and sinking of the Deepwater Horizon oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico (Wei et al., 2012), and the leaks in the Bohai Bay platforms (China) (Liu and Zhu, 2014). Since 1986 in Colombia, ca. 4 million barrels of oil have been spilled because of accidents and attacks against the oil infrastructure (MINAMBIENTE, 2015). These accidents have resul- ted in significant economic, ecological and environmental damages at different levels (poisoning, reproductive problems, and death) on the aquatic and terrestrial biota of the surrounding areas. According to Kingston (2002), these unfavourable effects could appear in the short, mid and long-term (up to 10 years) after the environmental incident has occurred. In the oil industry, the contingency plans that have been avail- able to mitigate the damages and the side effects when a spill oc- curs on different “sources” (water/sediment/soil), include methods such as biological remediation (Ron and Rosenberg, 2014), mem- brane filtration (Tansel et al., 1995), dispersion (Riehm et al., 2015) and adsorption (Raj and Joy, 2015). The last method is the preferred alternative due to its high efficiency, easy handling, and * Corresponding author. E-mail addresses: cindyelles@gmail.com (C.J. Elles-P erez), amnerm@uninorte. edu.co (A. Mu~ noz-Acevedo), faguzman@uninorte.edu.co (A. Guzm an), director@ ginmea.org (H. Camargo), jahenao@uis.edu.co (J. Henao). Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Journal of Environmental Management journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jenvman http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jenvman.2017.03.049 0301-4797/© 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Journal of Environmental Management 196 (2017) 466e475