Application of hydrophobic polymers as solidifiers for oil spill cleanup

Oil spill containments are daily life problems due to inherent risks in transporting oil and diluted bitumen products via both tankers and pipelines. For oil–water separation, using a solidifier is one of the most efficient methods which triggers chemical interactions between the solidifier and the spilled oil to change the liquid phase of oil to a coherent mass, through a process called solidification. This study presents the performance of polypropylene (fibers, granule) and polyethylene granule solidifiers for oil spill cleanup by the gravimetric and spectrophotometric methods. The obtained results showed that polypropylene fibers have the highest sorption percentage (82.2%) and sorption capacity (12.5 g/g). The isothermal study reflects the Langmuir isotherm shows the good correlation coefficient ( R 2 = 0.93) for polypropylene fibers with consistency with the experimental data.