Technical Note Efficiency of recycled wool-based nonwoven material for the removal of oils from water Maja Radetic * , Vesna Ilic, Darinka Radojevic, Robert Miladinovic, Dragan Jocic, Petar Jovancic Textile Engineering Department, Faculty of Technology and Metallurgy, University of Belgrade, Karnegijeva 4, 11120 Belgrade, Serbia Received 16 March 2007; received in revised form 6 July 2007; accepted 9 July 2007 Available online 20 August 2007 Abstract The aim of this study was to highlight the potential use of recycled wool-based nonwoven material for the removal of diesel fuel, crude, base, vegetable and motor oil from water. Sorption capacity of the material in water and in oil without water, oil retention, sor- bent reusability and buoyancy in static and dynamic conditions were investigated. The results show high sorption capacity of recycled wool for different kinds of oil. This sorbent also exhibited excellent buoyancy after 24 h of sorption as well as a good reusability since the decrease in sorption capacity did not exceed 50% of the initial value after five sorption cycles in oil without water. Ó 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Keywords: Recycled wool; Nonwoven material; Sorption; Oil 1. Introduction The last large-scale oil spill on the Galician coast by the oil tanker Prestige in 2002 increased the global concern on the environmental impact of accidental oil releases, stress- ing the need for the development of a wide range of mate- rials for different stages of oil spill remediation since the efficiency of cleanup varies with time, type of oil and spill, the location and weather conditions (Adebajo et al., 2003). Different materials can be used for oil spill cleanups, but it seems that sorbents particularly attract the attention due to the possibility of collecting and completely removing of the oil from spill sites. Sorbents are required to show high sorption capacity, good buoyancy, adequate oil retention and preferably be reusable. Most of the currently commercially available sor- bents are synthetic materials with high oleophilicity, that is, due to their hydrophobic nature, this being the reason for outstanding oil sorption capacities. Despite the superior oil sorption properties, their poor biodegradability make them less attractive compared to some natural oil sorbents (Johnson et al., 1973; Choi and Moreau, 1993). This has renewed the interest of using various inorganic and organic natural sorbents for oil spill cleanups as reported by many research groups (Adebajo et al., 2003; Deschamp et al., 2003; Mysore et al., 2004; Suni et al., 2004; Vianna et al., 2004; Annunciado et al., 2005; Bayat et al., 2005; Banerjee et al., 2006; Sayed and Zayed, 2006). In spite of their com- paratively lower efficiency and poor buoyancy, the biode- gradability and the usual low cost of natural sorbents, make them more suitable for the cleanup of small-scale oil spills (Suni et al., 2004). Although the problem of accidental oil spills during its transportation and storage is of great importance particularly because of the long-term environmental and economical impact, probably less dangerous small-scale contaminations by oil in every day life have been underesti- mated so far. The sewers with mineral oil or fuel (leaking from automobiles) carried from the streets by the rain and water polluted with vegetable oils after the continuous wash- ing up in restaurants are only some of the problems that must be dealt with Deschamp et al. (2003). 0045-6535/$ - see front matter Ó 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.chemosphere.2007.07.005 * Corresponding author. Tel.: +381 11 3303 857; fax: +381 11 3370 387. E-mail address: maja@tmf.bg.ac.yu (M. Radetic). www.elsevier.com/locate/chemosphere Available online at www.sciencedirect.com Chemosphere 70 (2008) 525–530