Application of Natural Sorbents in Crude Oil Adsorption

In last decades, oil spill pollution has become an important issue of concern due to its serious environmental impacts; therefore, necessary actions should be taken to prevent or reduce these types of pollution and their environmental consequences. Natural organic sorbents are emerging as proper choices for oil spill cleanup due to their availability, eco-friendliness, and low cost. In this study, phragmites australis, sugarcane leaves straw, and sugarcane bagasse were used for crude oil sorption in dry (only oil) systems. The results indicated that sugarcane bagasse had a higher oil sorption capacity compared to the others. Therefore, sugarcane bagasse was selected as the preferred sorbent and the effects of sorbent contact time and its particle size on oil adsorption capacity were evaluated for the systems of dry and crude oil layer on water. The results showed that the maximum adsorption capacity of raw sugarcane bagasse for dry system and crude oil layer system was about 8 and 6.6 gram crude oil per gram sorbent respectively.