A Novel Method for Adsorption using Human Hair as a Natural Oil Spill Sorbent Peter Rowland Ukotije-Ikwut, Akpevwe Kelvin Idogun, Christopher Tubuyai Iriakuma, Abiye Aseminaso and Tamunotonjo Obomanu – Federal Polytechnic of Oil and Gas, Bonny, Rivers State, Nigeria Abstract— Oil exploration has enormous economic benefits; however, these benefits are associated with environmental issues arising from oil spills. Numerous methods exist for cleaning up oil spills along with their after-effect as well as huge financial burden. Hence, the shift to methods that are environmentally friendly and cost effective is imperative. This paper investigates the efficiency and mechanics of using human hair to clean up crude oil contaminated water using various parameters such as contact time, recovery and reuse, adsorbent dosage, temperature, modification. Human hair has proven to be an efficient material in removing oil from water with a maximum adsorption capacity of 7470mg/g for crude oil as well as its recovery and reusability. Investigation reveals that African hair came first, followed by Asian hair and finally, European hair with an adsorption capacity of 7470, 6176 and 5246mg/g for crude oil respectively. The result obtained for the kinetics of adsorption revealed a good fit in pseudo-second order model, indicating that the mode of adsorption is exothermic which is controlled by a chemisorption process. The isotherm studies also revealed that the experimental data is better described with Freundlich isotherm model. A comparative analysis conducted using the maximum adsorption capacity of different adsorbents revealed that human hair performed better than organoclay, rice husks, reed bed canary grass, treated sludge, modified oil palm leaves, peat moss and activated carbon, but less than exfoliated graphytes, kapot and recycled wool based non-woven material. Hence, human hair can be modified into boom to clean-up oil spills. This is a promising area that researchers need to focus more on inorder to explore the huge benefits it presents. Key words: Adsorption capacity, adsorption isotherm, clean-up, human hair, oil spill, sorption kinetics, sorbent Introduction Oil exploration, production and transportation are critical to the development of the economy of many nations across the world owing to the enormous benefits derived from it. Due to the essential nature of oil, it is very difficult for an individual or a country to complete the day's activities without directly or indirectly depending on petroleum products. However, these processes (petroleum exploration, production and transportation) over the years have impacted negatively on the environment as a legacy, ranging from oil spillages, release of dangerous substances into the air, water and land, species extinction etc [1]. Over the years there has been cases of oil spills disaster around the world giving rise to environmental degradation [2], species extinction to mention a few. Notably among them are: Torrey Canyon oil spill disaster 1969 [3], Sea Star – Gulf of Oman 1972 [4], Atlantic Express – West India 1979 [5], Exxon Valdez in 1989 [6], Dalian spill into Yellow Sea 2010 [2], Gulf of Mexico 2010 [7]. The consequence of oil spills has tremendous impact on the ecosystem e.g the Exxon Valdez resulted in the death of about 30,000 sea bird [8], 2000 sea otters, 250,000 seabirds, 302 harbor seals [9].The disaster and other incidents contributed to the reduction of pigeon guillemots from 15000 in the 70s, to 3000 in the 90s [10]. It also lead to the increase in the concentration of THC and TPAH in mussels to 62,000 ug/g wet wt and 8 ug/g dry wet respectively as against the background concentration of less than 60 ug/g THC and 0.5 ug/g TPAH [11]. In the case of the Gulf of Mexico oil spill, the ecological damage done to aquatic organisms are incalculable; however, the disaster affected about 20% of the national wetlands in the River Delta of Mississippi, which provides habitat for resting sea birds as well as resting migratory birds [7]. The oil spill covered about 88,000 square miles and also made its way to the beaches and estuaries thereby causing a great deal of damage to tourism, fishing industries, many marine animals and bird species inhabiting areas within and around the Gulf of Mexico [7]. The inevitable nature of oil spills has necessitated the need to seek for ways of mitigating its environmental impacts. There are several methods employed to clean up oil spills in water such as direct burning, use of dispersants, mechanical skimmers, use of booms and sorbents [1], [12]. During the famous Gulf of Mexico oil spill in 2010 about 700 km of boom were deployed to clean up the spill, the application of skimmers recovered about 27 million gallons of oily water and more than 1.5 million gallons of dispersants were used as at the first of July, 2010 [13]. The use of chemicals and mechanical recovery equipment may be time consuming, increase the cost of clean-up and may also require a lot of personnel as well as equipment, hence, the need to explore other environmentally friendly and low cost alternatives [14]. There are materials with low sorption capacity, non-biodegradable and usually expensive, but possess high hydrophobic and oleophilic properties that are available commercially which are made from polyeruthene, International Journal of Scientific & Engineering Research, Volume 7, Issue 8, August-2016 ISSN 2229-5518 1754 IJSER © 2016 http://www.ijser.org IJSER