Research On Performance Of Kapok And Kapok Composites As Oil Absorbents

Currently oil pollution is the main type of water pollution and oil spill is the main way for oil dumping into the water body. Petroleum compounds can endanger the ecological environment and human health. Therefore, developing high-performance oil-absorbing materials is an important way to solve oil pollution problem. In this paper, oil spill cleanuped methods, the development of oil-absorbing materials and advantages and disadvantages of kinds of oil-absorbing materials are briefly introduced. The key point of this aticle is intended to testing the oil absorption performance of kapok and oil-absorbing composite materials based kapok (kapok-tires powder oil-absorbing composite materials and kapok-pig hair oil-absorbing composite materials). According to experimental data tested to oil-absorbing materials, oil-absorbing mechanism and relationship between influence factors and oil absorption performance are explained and analyzed.(1) The oil absorption speed, saturated oil absorption capacity and reusability of kapok are tested. Influence on the oil absorption properties by packing density of kapok, environment temperature and oil type are tested and analyzed. The results show that kapok has high saturated oil absorption capacity, but low reusability.(2) The oil absorption properties of kapok-tires powder oil-absorbing composite materials are tested. Influence on the oil-absorbing properties by packing density of kapok and mass ratio between tires powder and kapok are analyzed. Finally the experiment compares oil absorption capacity of kapok-tires powder oil-absorbing composite materials with superposition value by oil absorption capacity of individual components. The results show that tires powder can improve reusability of kapok-tires powder oil-absorbing composite materials somewhat in comparison with kapok, but oil absorption capacity of kapok-tires powder compared with superposition value by oil absorption capacity of individual components used alone is declined.(3) The oil-absorbing properties of kapok-pig hair oil-absorbing composite materials are measured. Inpact on the oil-absorbing properties by packing density of kapok, packing density of pig hair and mass ratio between pig hair and kapok are analyzed. In addition, oil absorption capacity of kapok-pig hair oil-absorbing composite materials is compared with superposition value by oil absorption capacity of individual components of composite materials. The results show that pig hair can not only enhance reusability of kapok-pig hair oil-absorbing composite materials in comparison with kapok, but also increase oil absorption capacity of kapok-pig hair oil-absorbing composite materials compared with superposition value by oil absorption capacity of individual components used alone.In a word, compared with other oil absorption material, kapok shows greater saturated oil absorption capacity. In addition, the saturated oil absorption capacity and reusability of kapok-pig hair oil-absorbing composite materials obtained in this experiment are both improved. So they can be applied to cleanup of oil spill in three gorges reservoir area or the sea.