Low-Cost Activated Carbon for Petroleum Products Clean-Up
2022
Ramonna I. Kosheleva | George Z. Kyzas | Nikolaos C. Kokkinos | Athanasios C. Mitropoulos
Petroleum products are hazardous both for humans and nature. Diesel oil is one of the main contaminants of land but also of sea, during its transportation. Currently, there are many different clean-up techniques for petroleum products. One of the most common is adsorption by adsorbent materials. Although adsorption is an eco-friendly and cost-effective approach, it lacks efficiency. The present study investigates the performance of low-cost activated carbon, derived from potato peels and activated under different temperature conditions, from 350 °:C to 800 °:C. The yield of activated carbon decreases with the increase in the carbonization temperature. However, the sample prepared at 600 °:C shows an oil sorption capacity of 72 g/g, which is the highest of all samples. Nitrogen adsorption characterization reveals that this specific sample has the highest specific surface (SSA) area of 1052 m2/g and total a pore volume of 2.959 cm3/g, corresponding to a 94% and 77% increase compared to the sample prepared at 350 °:C. Oil sorption kinetics experiments show that, for all samples, the maximum uptake is reached after 1h. Oil uptake was also investigated under realistic conditions by introducing the best performance activated carbon to an oil/seawater system, and the outcome does not show a significant decrease in the oil sorption. The outcomes of this study indicate that low-cost adsorbents from agricultural by-products have strong potential as an oil spill response technique.
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