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| Specific Physiochemical Characterization of Corn Straw Fibers as Potential Agro-sorbent for Crude Oil Spills on Surface Water. |
Benjamin Abu. E, Olabimtan Olabode.H, Hannah Amadike, Akinlotan Oluyinka O, Agboni Mercy.O.
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Abstract:
Oil to water pollution remains an international menace with terrible environmental and socio-economic implications. However, diverse control methods and techniques such as agricultural biomaterials as fibers are been designed for the management of the crude spills across the water bodies. Most plant fibers have been reported to be good sorbents of oil. However, despite the excellent capacity of most synthetic sorbents, natural agro-based resources are still perceived to be of good performance when critically evaluated. Natural corn straw fibers have been selectively identified as a readily available, viable, and environmentally oriented approach with the remediation potential of water bodies. The proximate compositions, such as the moisture at 16.25 percent, ash content of 8.53 percent, crude fiber of 72.12 percent, cellulose of 23.15 percent, hemicelluloses of 14.05percent, and lignin content of 45.23percent were determined. Identifications by FT-IR justify the availabilities of the stretching vibrations of -OH, C-O-C, and alpha-glycosidic bonds respectively. Five different particle sizes (60,100,150,203, and 305mm) were adopted in the treatment of the selected characteristics. Thus, the individual particle sizes (PS) were interacted and modeled with the bulk densities (Bd)[PS=677.3(Bd) - 31.33]; tapped densities(Td)[PS=573.2(Td) - 44.02], true density(TrueD)[PS= 383.4(TrueD) - 42.43], porosity(p) [PS= - 3236(p) + 1652], repose angle(Ra)[PS= -119.2(Ra) + 2889],carr's index(CI)[PS= -11.58(CI) + 687.1] , hausner ratio(Hr)[PS= -2619(Hr) + 3520] , and the spill sorption capacity (COSC)[PS= 12.83(COSC) + 6.057] . The significance of these relationships was ascertained with the statistical T-tests. The least particle size of 60mm retained the sorption ability of 4.65% with the initial fiber weight of 0.5g with a very poor frictional property of 55.30, while the highest particle size of 305mm resulted in 23.50% sorption capacity with an appreciable frictional property of 35.30. These developments concerning the poor crude oil sorption performance have declared a rationale for the improvement of corn straw fiber as an agro-sorbent through chemical modifications for optimum performance.
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