A potential remediation of total petroleum hydrocarbon from contaminated soils using surfactant suspended multiwall carbon nanotubes

Abstract

The spill of crude oil on the soil contaminates it, causing cancer, a dearth of vegetation, livestock deaths, and forced migrations. The petroleum hydrocarbon (TPH) was removed from the soil by ultrasonication of MWCNTs (Multiwalled Carbon Nanotubes) only, MWCNTs + IONP (Iron Oxide Nanoparticles) and MWCNTs + IONP + PEG (Polymer Nanocomposite (P.N.C)) in a laboratory batch adsorption experiment with Triton X 100 surfactant. The effects of contact time, agitation speed, adsorbent dosage and pH was studied. Results showed varied and high removal rate for the three adsorbent suspensions at different parameter. The highest removal percentage was 91.37% at pH 2 for MWCNTs + IONP and 90.72% at 90 min contact time for MWCNT only, while 85.56% was observed for P.N.C at 0.01g adsorbent dosage. However, all three adsorbent suspensions exhibit high removal rates regardless of the parameters studied. In this case, Freundlich's adsorption isotherm was the most accurate description of the process, while pseudo-second order fit the kinetic data more accurately.

Keywords

• MWCNTs
• TPH
• Adsorption
• % removal
• Isotherms
• Kinetics