978-1-5386-4904-6/18/$31.00 ©2018 IEEE 162 Oil Spill Remediation by Adsorption Using Two Forms of Activated Carbon in Marine Environment * Tasnia Hassan Nazifa Faculty of Civil Engineering Universiti Teknologi Malaysia Skudai, Johor, Malaysia thnazifa@gmail.com Tony Hadibarata Faculty of Engineering and Science Curtin University, CDT 250 Miri, Sarawak, Malaysia hadibarata@curtin.edu.my A S M Shanawaz Uddin Faculty of Civil Engineering Universiti Teknologi Malaysia Skudai, Johor, Malaysia asm.shanawaz@gmail.com *Salmiati Centre for Environmental Sustainability and Water Security Universiti Teknologi Malaysia Skudai, Johor, Malaysia. salmiati@utm.my Rashidul Islam Faculty of Built Environment Universiti Teknologi Malaysia Skudai, Johor, Malaysia mrislam1080@gmail.com Azmi Aris Centre for Environmental Sustainability and Water Security Universiti Teknologi Malaysia Skudai, Johor, Malaysia. azmi.aris@utm.my Abstract: The removal of diesel oil from water by activated carbon and magnetically modified activated carbon (MAC) produced from agricultural waste like banana stem was investigated. Batch adsorption technique was followed by varying pH (2 to 10), adsorbent dosage (0.05 to 1.5 gm), contact time (5 to 70 min) and initial concentration (200 to 4500 mg/L) to obtain optimum parameters. The magnetized activated carbon exhibited a greater removal (97%) compared to non- magnetized activated carbon (83%). FTIR (Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy), FESEM and XRD were used to characterize the adsorbents. Kinetic and isotherm studies were also executed. The experimental result fitted well with Freundlich model (R 2 = 0.99) and pseudo second order kinetic model (R 2 = 0.99) for MAC. Keywords: Oil spill, Activated carbon, Magnetic activated carbon, Remediation, Diesel. I. INTRODUCTION Environmental catastrophes like Exxon Valdez (Alaska, 1989), Prestige (Spain, 2002) or Deepwater Horizon by British Petroleum (Gulf of Mexico, 2010) brought to the limelight claiming urgent step to control the deliberate oil release and accidental oil spill onto open waters or ocean. This contamination of oil with water are not only restricted to large scale and well-known spill incidents but also more frequently occurred small-scale oil spills [1]. For example, approximately sixteen oil spill incidents are found to report daily in water routes of the USA [2], more than hundred oil spills have been yearly reported in Nigeria [1]. However, oil pollution in marine environment not only originated from oil tanker collision during transportation but also from run-offs of onshore facilities. According to [3], from 2010 to 2015, oil tanker collision contributed about 235715 barrel of oil contamination into marine environment all over the world. The most recent spill incident recorded in January 6, 2018 in East China sea; spilled approximately 138,000 tonnes of oil due to oil tankers collision. On 2 nd October 2016, 105 tonnes of oil spilled in North sea, Shetland, UK. Therefore, the clean-up of oil spills has turned into a global challenge. After analyzing the consequences of oil spills in the marine environment, it has been found that oil spill incidents cause long duration damages to aquatic ecosystems as well as induces a huge loss [4]. To reduce environmental effect of oil spill rapidly an environment friendly & efficient oil remediation method is remarkably demanded. Conventional techniques for oil spill clean-up comprises of skimming, sorption, bioremediation and in situ burning [3]. Among these mentioned treatments, adsorption process attracted enough consideration because of possessing high surface area, ease and high removal efficiency. Adsorbents sorb pollutant moles by providing a huge surface area for chemical and physical interaction. However, one of the major limitations of using adsorbents for remediation of oil polluted sites are huge capital cost as well as comparatively low efficiency of adsorption and capacity of adsorbent materials. Carbon based adsorbents are widely used for water pollution treatment. Among different carbon materials, activated carbons are being widely applied as sorption material in the oil pollution treatment [5]. Although graphene, carbon nanotubes, commercial activated carbon can offer a high adsorption uptake, they are much costly to be applied in the oil clean-up process [3]. However, the agricultural waste based activated carbon in this case can demonstrate very cheap, environment friendly bio-material. Compared with many other bio-materials, agricultural waste needs little or sometimes no processing, comfortable to use and plentiful in nature. Based on past research, adsorption that employs activated carbon has achieved the best technique to treat water pollution [6]. Magnetic modification makes it achievable to efficiently separate as well as recover activated carbon by using a simple external magnetic process [7]. Recently preparation and utilization of magnetized activated carbon have been gained more attention. Microporous Fe-Carbon nanocomposite, porous carbon iron oxide nanocomposite from metal organic framework (MOF), ENR-magnetized nanoparticle, magnetic carbon nanotube sponges, epoxidized natural rubber, iron oxide composite from palm shell based activated carbon, exfoliated magnetic graphite, core−shell Fe2O3@C nanoparticles had been studied previously for oil removal by magnetic separation. The adsorbents mentioned above such as magnetic polyurethane foam, porous carbon iron oxide nanocomposite from metal organic framework (MOF), Microporous Fe-Carbon nanocomposite, ENR magnetite nanoparticle etc. are effective for oil removal capacity. Nevertheless, the synthesis of these compounds is comparatively complex as well as costly with the low yield. Authorized licensed use limited to: UNIVERSITY TEKNOLOGI MALAYSIA. Downloaded on December 23,2020 at 04:22:09 UTC from IEEE Xplore. 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