Treatment of Contaminated Water from Niger Delta Oil Fields with Carbonized Sisal Fibre Doped with Nanosilica from Ofada Rice Husk

Abstract

Oil spills contaminate water bodies and hence, cause the death of marine animals. The Niger Delta Oil contaminated water was treated by adsorption using sisal fibre activated carbon (SFAC) doped with silica nanoparticles (SNP) synthesized from Ofada rice husk which was carbonized at temperatures 400 °C and 650 °C. The SNP was synthesized at 600 °C (SNP-1) and 800 °C (SNP-2). The proportion in SFAC: SNP for both temperature values was 4.8:0.2 with a basis of 5 grams of the adsorbent. The samples were characterized by SEM, BET analysis, XRF and XRD. The adsorption equilibrium studies obeyed Langmuir adsorption isotherm; as the linear correlation value was close to unity, with a separation factor of 0.004. SNP-1 shows amophous nature having Fe2O3 and SNP-2 shows crystalline nature which consist of quartz. SNP-2 was used for the study due to its high surface area observed in the BET. High % removal efficiency of 99.84 was attained with silica nanoparticle (SNP-2) integrated in sisal fiber activated carbon (SFAC carbonized at 400 °C).