Coco Peat as Agricultural Waste Sorbent for Sustainable Diesel-Filter System
Gayathiri Verasoundarapandian,
Nur Nadhirah Zakaria,
Noor Azmi Shaharuddin,
Khalilah Abdul Khalil,
Nurul Aini Puasa,
Alyza Azzura Azmi,
Claudio Gomez-Fuentes,
Azham Zulkharnain,
Chiew Yen Wong,
Muhammad Fahdli Rahman,
Siti Aqlima Ahmad
Affiliations
Gayathiri Verasoundarapandian
Department of Biochemistry, Faculty of Biotechnology and Biomolecular Sciences, Universiti Putra Malaysia, Serdang 43400, Selangor, Malaysia
Nur Nadhirah Zakaria
Department of Biochemistry, Faculty of Biotechnology and Biomolecular Sciences, Universiti Putra Malaysia, Serdang 43400, Selangor, Malaysia
Noor Azmi Shaharuddin
Department of Biochemistry, Faculty of Biotechnology and Biomolecular Sciences, Universiti Putra Malaysia, Serdang 43400, Selangor, Malaysia
Khalilah Abdul Khalil
School of Biology, Faculty of Applied Sciences, Universiti Teknologi MARA, Shah Alam 40450, Selangor, Malaysia
Nurul Aini Puasa
Department of Biochemistry, Faculty of Biotechnology and Biomolecular Sciences, Universiti Putra Malaysia, Serdang 43400, Selangor, Malaysia
Alyza Azzura Azmi
Faculty of Science and Marine Environment, Universiti Malaysia Terengganu, Kuala Nerus 21030, Terengganu, Malaysia
Claudio Gomez-Fuentes
Department of Chemical Engineering, Universidad de Magallanes, Avda. Bulnes, Punta Arenas 01855, Chile
Azham Zulkharnain
Department of Bioscience and Engineering, College of Systems Engineering and Science, Shibaura Institute of Technology, 307 Fukasaku, Minumaku, Saitama 337-8570, Japan
Chiew Yen Wong
School of Health Sciences, International Medical University, Bukit Jalil, Kuala Lumpur 57000, Malaysia
Muhammad Fahdli Rahman
Merbau Agrotechnology (M) Sdn. Bhd., JA2391, Jalan Sungai Renggi 2, Kampung Sungai Renggi, Merlimau 77300, Melaka, Malaysia
Siti Aqlima Ahmad
Department of Biochemistry, Faculty of Biotechnology and Biomolecular Sciences, Universiti Putra Malaysia, Serdang 43400, Selangor, Malaysia
Oil spill incidents are hazardous and have prolonged damage to the marine environment. Management and spill clean-up procedures are practical and rapid, with several shortcomings. Coco peat (CP) and coco fibre (CF) are refined from coconut waste, and their abundance makes them desirable for diesel spillage treatment. Using a filter-based system, the selectivity of coco peat sorbent was tested using CP, CF and peat-fibre mix (CPM). CP exhibited maximal diesel sorption capacity with minimal seawater uptake, thus being selected for further optimisation analysis. The heat treatment considerably improved the sorption capacity and efficiency of diesel absorbed by CP, as supported by FTIR and VPSEM–EDX analysis. Conventional one-factor-at-a-time (OFAT) examined the performance of diesel sorption by CP under varying parameters, namely temperature, time of heating, packing density and diesel concentration. The significant factors were statistically evaluated using response surface methodology (RSM) via Plackett–Burman design (PB) and central composite design (CCD). Three significant (p v/v) and the experimental model validated the design with 59.17% (71.00 mL) diesel sorbed at the optimised conditions of 14.1 min of heating (200 °C) with packing density of 0.08 g/cm3 and 30% (v/v) of diesel concentration. The performance of CP in RSM (59.17%) was better than that in OFAT (58.33%). The discoveries imply that natural sorbent materials such as CP in oil spill clean-up operations can be advantageous and environmentally feasible. This study also demonstrated the diesel-filter system as a pilot study for the prospective up-scale application of oil spills.
