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Oil Spill Clean-up from Sea Water using Waste

Chicken Feathers

Conference Paper May 2016

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 Proc. of The Fourth Intl. Conf. On Advances in Applied Science and Environmental Technology - ASET 2016
Copyright Institute of Research Engineers and Doctors, USA .All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-63248-097-2 doi: 10.15224/ 978-1-63248-097-2-42

Oil Spill Clean-up from Sea Water using Waste Chicken Feathers
[Augustine Osamor Ifelebuegu and Precious Chinonyere]
Abstract Oil spill is a major environmental disaster that These conventional sorbents used in the process of cleaning
has continued to plague the petroleum industry. After the oil spills are expensive and usually non-biodegradable and
2010 Deepwater Horizon spill, there has been an increase in hence not environmentally sustainable. Low-cost non-
research on the uses of low cost environmentally sustainable conventional sorbents are emerging as alternatives to
options for spill clean-up. The use of low-cost sorbents is conventional materials used in oil-spill clean-up owing to
considered a cost-effective and environmentally friendly. their eco-friendliness, availability, and low cost. The use of
With over 5 million tonnes of waste chicken feathers agricultural and human wastes and by-products from
generated annually around the globe, the management of the industries has gained more attention since the Deep Water
solid waste is an enormous challenge. In this paper, we Horizon Disaster [4, 5]. A large arrays of naturally occurring
examine the adsorptive removal of different oil types from materials have been investigated as potential sorbents for oil
sea water using waste chicken feathers. The adsorption spill clean-up. These include cotton fibre, kapok, raw jute,
properties were investigated in batch adsorption experiments rice husk and melon carbon aerogel [5], human hair and
using crude oil, vegetable oil and diesel fuel. The maximum coconut coir [4]. They have the advantage of being
adsorption capacities were 7694 mg/g, 6059 mg/g and 4097 inexpensive, readily available and usually biodegradable.
mg/g for vegetable oil, crude oil, and diesel fuel
respectively. The adsorption kinetics varied inversely with Over 5 million tonnes of chicken feathers (CFs) wastes are
increasing temperatures and was better described by the generated annually from commercial poultry farms around
pseudo-second-order kinetic model. the World, creating an enormous and costly solid waste
management change. In this paper, we investigate the
Keywords oil, oil spills, sorption, chicken feathers potential application of waste CFs as sorbents for oil spill
clean-up.

I. Introduction
Crude oil exploration and production is a major aspect of the
global economy because of the enormous revenues II. Materials and Method
generated from its activities. Nonetheless, despite the many
benefits emanating from the industry, the negative impacts
that the exploration and production process can exert on the
A. Materials
environment remains a major concern for the industry. Oil The waste CFs used in this experiment were acquired from a
spill is one of the known sources of direct and indirect local West Midlands poultry farm. The CFs were soaked for
marine pollution. Although oil spills account for about 5 to 24 hours and washed with bleach to remove odour. The hard
12 percent of oil contaminations, the high oil concentration rachis was removed from the shaft using scissors while the
deposited could cause great damage to affected areas. Oil soft barbs were washed and oven dried. The CFs were
spills can occur as a result of explosions, during transfer, further soaked with sodium bicarbonate and dried in an oven
accidents due to a collision, or leakages from pipelines or set at 1400C for 24 hours. The dried samples were
vessels [1, 2]. pulverised to increase surface area. The cross sections of the
sample were examined using a JOEL 6060LV model
Oil spill recovery after a spill is usually challenging, costly scanning electron microscope, Japan. The crude oil sample
and often a difficult task. Various methods are applied in the was Bonny Light crude. The vegetable oil was purchased
clean-up process including chemical, physical and biological from Sainsbury Supermarket, UK. The diesel fuel was
methods. Use of sorbents is one of the physical methods and purchased from Esso, Coventry, UK. Artificial sea water
has been applied in the industry for several years. was prepared as has been previously described by Kester et
Commercial sorbents are extensively used in oil spill clean- al., [6].
up. The most commonly applied are synthetic sorbents like
polystyrene, polypropylene, and polyester foams. They have
high hydrophobic and oleophilic properties and can sorb up B. Batch Adsorption Studies
to 70 times their weight in oil. They can also be used several Adsorption experiments were conducted in seawater as has
times after recovery in some instances [3]. been previously described by Ifelebuegu et al., [4]. Oil
sorption capacities (mg/g) were obtained from equation 1:

Augustine Osamor Ifelebuegu, Precious Chinonyere (1)

School of Energy, Construction and Environment, Coventry University
United Kingdom Where Xo is the total mass of wet sorbent after oil
adsorption and Xs is the mass of the adsorbent before
adsorption. All experiments were conducted at room
temperature (25oC 20C) and carried out in triplicate with
the average value and standard deviation (SD) calculated.

61
 Proc. of The Fourth Intl. Conf. On Advances in Applied Science and Environmental Technology - ASET 2016
Copyright Institute of Research Engineers and Doctors, USA .All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-63248-097-2 doi: 10.15224/ 978-1-63248-097-2-42

Sample data with SD greater than 10% were rejected with a result is similar to the trend observed by Ifelebuegu and
re-run of the test carried out. Momoh [9] while using coconut coir to remove vegetable oil
and diesel fuel from salt water. The high rate of sorption of
the oils onto CF may be due to the high keratin contents and
strong disulphide bonding which is mainly responsible for
III. Results and Discussion their hydrophobic characteristics. It can also be attributed to
the hollow structures of knots and hooks as shown in figure
1.
A. Surface Morphology
The surface morphology of CF was characterised by using 8000
SEM analysis to determine the porosity and texture of the
7000

Oil Adsorbed (mg/g)

sorbent. According to Figure 1, chicken feathers have
6000
hollow structures of knots and hooks [7]. These hollow
structures contribute to the available pore spaces for binding 5000
Veg Oil
with the oil adsorbates. Entangled pore structure and rough 4000
morphology of sorbents materials are known to enhance oil 3000 Crude Oil
retention [8]. 2000 Diesel Fuel
1000
0
0 10 20 30 40 50 60
Time (mins)

Figure 2. Adsorption Rate of CF in vegetable oil, crude oil

and diesel fuel at temperature 25 20C. The bars represent
the standard deviation of the mean.

It can be seen that the sorption capacity for vegetable oil

was the highest followed by crude oil and then diesel fuel.
(a)
Similar results were reported by Ifelebuegu et al., [4], for the
sorption of the same oils on human hair. The higher
adsorption capacity for vegetable oil and crude oil are
attributed to their higher viscosities, causing them to bind
with the active sites on the CFs.

C. Sorption Kinetics
The adsorption kinetics was investigated for CF by using the
pseudo-first order and pseudo-second order adsorption
models as proposed by Lagergren, 1898 [10] and can be
expressed linearly as equations 2 and 3:

(b) Log (Ce-Ct) = Log Ce- k1 (2)

2.303
Figure 1a and b: SEM images of chicken-feather: X330 2
and X800 magnification, 50 m and 20 m bar length t/Ct = 1/k2*C +t/Ce (3)
equivalent, 10KV working voltage.
Pseudo-first order plot of Log (Ce-Ct) against t should give
a linear relationship from which k1 in (min-1) can be
calculated from the slope of the graph. A plot of t/Ct will
B. Effect of Contact Time and Sorption give a rate constant k2 (mg g-1min-1) for pseudo-second order
Capacities kinetics. Table 1 present the constant values and correlation
The effects of contact time on oil sorption by chicken coefficients R2 of both pseudo-first order and pseudo-
feathers for the three oil types are illustrated in Figure 2. It second-order kinetic models for adsorption of vegetable oil
can be seen that the oil sorption process was rapid initially and diesel fuel onto CF. The pseudo second order model
indicates that the adsorption process favours chemisorption.
in the first 10 minutes, reaching equilibrium in about 30
This implies that the oil molecules form strong bonds with
minutes. The observed initial rapid sorption may be due to
the movement of oil molecules from the higher active sites of CF [11]. Ifelebuegu et al, [4] and Ifelebuegu
concentration regions to the surface of the adsorbent. This and Momoh [9] both reported a pseudo second order

62
 Proc. of The Fourth Intl. Conf. On Advances in Applied Science and Environmental Technology - ASET 2016
Copyright Institute of Research Engineers and Doctors, USA .All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-63248-097-2 doi: 10.15224/ 978-1-63248-097-2-42

kinetics for the oil sorption onto human hair and coconut References
coir respectively.

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Oil Type Pseudo-first order Pseudo-second order
[2] International Tanker Owners Pollution Federation
k1(min-1) R2 k2 (mg g- R2 (2013) The Oil Tankers Spill Statistics [online]
1 -1
min ) available from <http://www.itopf.com/knowledge-
Vegetable oil 0.117 0.778 0.375 0.982 resources/data-statistics/statistics/>
Diesel 0.111 0.788 0.250 0.973
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IV Conclusion
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 Proc. of The Fourth Intl. Conf. On Advances in Applied Science and Environmental Technology - ASET 2016
Copyright Institute of Research Engineers and Doctors, USA .All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-63248-097-2 doi: 10.15224/ 978-1-63248-097-2-42

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