Study of oil sorption behavior of filled and structured fiber assemblies made from polypropylene, kapok and milkweed fibers

▶ In this study, we compare the oil (high density oil and diesel oil) sorption behaviour of filled and structured fiber assemblies made from single natural (kapok and milkweed) and synthetic fibers (polypropylene) as well as blends of natural and synthetic fibers. ▶ We analyze the results in terms of porosity and hydraulic pore diameters of the fiber assemblies and concluded that higher is the porosity higher is the oil sorption capacity. ▶ The natural fiber assemblies are found to have good sorption capacity, but this is lower as compared to that of polypropylene, especially when the porosity is less than 0.98. ▶ The natural fibres have low cellulose content which offers them slow biodegradability and they might be found as interesting sorbents for marine and freshwater applications. This article reports on oil sorption behavior of fiber assemblies made up of single natural and synthetic fibers as well as blend of natural and synthetic fibers when tested with high density oil and diesel oil. A series of filled fiber assemblies were prepared from 100% polypropylene, kapok, and milkweed fibers and another series of bonded structured fiber assemblies were prepared from a 70/30 blend of kapok and polypropylene fibers and a 70/30 blend of milkweed and polypropylene fibers. It was observed that the porosity of the fiber assemblies played a very important role in determining its oil sorption capacity. The polypropylene fiber assembly exhibited the highest sorption capacity (g/g) followed by the kapok and milkweed fiber assemblies at porosity