Synthesis and characterization of oven-dried oil palm empty fruit bunch - based xerogels for absorption of engine oil / Nik Muhammad Faisal Mat Yasin

Recently, environmental pollution especially oil-related pollution has become serious due to rapid industrialization. Industries usually have engine oil as scheduled waste in liquid form, thus have tendency to spill by accident. This research was conducted to prove ability of xerogel in absorption of engine oil, by synthesizing and characterizing xerogel via Scanning Electron Microscopic (SEM), Brunauer-Emmett-Teller (BET), Thermogravimetry Analysis (TGA), X-ray Diffraction (XRD) and Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy (FTIR). Xerogel from this study was derived from mixture of sodium alginate, EFB, CaCO3 and GDL via internal gelation and oven drying. Absorption of engine oil was analysed in terms of effect of mass of sodium alginate, calcium carbonate (CaCO3), empty fruit bunch (EFB) and glucono-delta-lactone (GDL). Investigation on relationship between chemical and material on absorption capacity of engine oil was done in Response Surface Methodology (RSM). From the analysis of variance, percentage weight over volume of sodium alginate, CaCO3 and GDL were significant to the experiment. Optimization of the RSM model determined optimal condition for absorption, which was 0.1 sodium alginate, CaCO3, EFB and 2.0 GDL. The absorption capacity obtained from that condition was 10.67 g/g (gram oil/ gram absorbent). The optimal condition was in line with effect of chemicals, in which GDL had to be the highest compared to others; sodium alginate, EFB and CaCO3. This research successfully proved that xerogel has potential in absorption of engine oil. This research will also open new pathway in developing sorbent based empty fruit bunch for problems related to absorbing oil.