MODELLING AND OPTIMIZING THE APPLICATION OF WASTE TYRE POWDER (WTP) AS OIL SORBENT, USING RESPONSE SURFACE METHODOLOGY (RSM)

Abstract

The rapid growth of the automobile industry has led to the abundance and indiscriminate disposal of waste tyres which causes environmental pollution and also lead to serious health problems. The absorption of crude oil using waste tyre powder (WTP) was investigated. A three variable Box-Behnken design was used to study the effect of particle size, contact time and temperature on the oil sorption capacity of WTP. Optimization was carried out using Response Surface Methodology (RSM). A quadratic model was obtained to predict the oil sorption capacity of WTP as a function of particle size, contact time and temperature. The optimum conditions of the sorption process obtained from RSM gave a temperature of 30.19oC, contact time 59.04 mins and particle size 0.15mm. A maximum oil sorption capacity of 4.71 g/g was obtained at these optimized conditions. Also, a comparison between the oil sorption efficiency of fresh tyre powder and regenerated tyre powder subjected to the same conditions of particle size, contact time and temperature were carried out. It was shown that the oil sorption capacity of the fresh tyre powder was higher than that of regenerated tyre powder.