Esterification of Corn Silk Fiber to Improve Oil Absorbency

Oil contamination has caused more public anxiety than other waste or spilt materials into the marine environment. Oil sorbents of high sorption capacity, biodegradable, readily available and low cost, are important for protection of water environment, especially from oil spillage. This work deals with raw and modified corn silk, an agricultural waste, as a low cost sorbent for oil-products spill cleanup in the aquatic environment. Corn silk was modified using fatty acid (oleic acid) to improve its sorption capacity. The chemical functional groups of raw and modified corn silk were analyzed by Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy. Kinetic tests were conducted with a series of contact times. The kinetic studies showed good correlation coefficients for a pseudo-second-order kinetic model. The oleic acid treated corn silk (OTCS) showed high degree of hydrophobicity and oil sorption capacity of approximately 10.7 and 11.90 g oil/g sorbent for Tapis and Arabian crude oil, respectively. Corn silk is a cheap waste material that can be treated to have an acceptable sorption capacity which can be used as an alternative to the commercial synthetic sorbents such as polypropylene.