The Evaluation of fibrous disposable facemask for oil sorption and efficient oil/water separation

Abstract

During the pandemic period, people have used various personal protective equipment including gloves, facemask and face shields. Among them, disposable facemask play a critical role to control the spread of COVID-19, that situation lead to occurring huge amount waste materials. Hence, there is urgent need to evaluate and suspend such waste materials from environment. Herein, we have investigated the potential use of disposable facemask as oil sorbent material for efficient oil/water separation. Due to their hydrophobic/oleophilic character of PP based disposable facemask. Some structural characterization techniques are employed to examine the facemask. A number of tests including absorbency, oil/water separation stability in oils and waters, selective removal of oils in different water medium have been systematically investigated. The outcomes show that waste facemask have great potential in the field of oil-water separation that achieve selectively separate the oil from oily wastewater.