Treatment of Crude Oil Wastewater Using Low-cost Modified Jordanian Kaolin Sorbent

Abstract

This work uses batch experiments to investigate the adsorption capacity of the low-cost modified Kaolin adsorbent to remove crude oil from refinery wastewater. Kaolin modification is carried out using lauric acid. Equilibrium and Kinetic analysis were studied to investigate the adsorption mechanism. The experimental work has conducted at 600C; at several contact times, different adsorbent amounts to find the optimum conditions. Results show an increase in the adsorption rate with increasing contact time. The maximum removal efficiency is obtained at about 80 min. No significant change in the equilibrium concentrations is achieved when increasing time after adsorption equilibrium is reached. Three equilibrium models were studied, Langmuir, Freundlich, and Temkin isotherms. Results show that the Langmuir model isotherm fits well with the experimental data with R 2=0.997; the 𝑅𝐿 value is less than one, suggesting that the crude oil adsorption onto modified Kaolin is favourable. Furthermore, three kinetic models are studied to understand the mechanism of adsorption. Among these models, pseudo-second-order models fitted the experimental data perfectly.