Sorption of crude oil by enzyme-modified corn stalk vs. chemically treated corn stalk

To reduce the growing menace of oil pollution on the environment and health by sorption, much attention has been paid to the production of high performance materials with modified surfaces. In this study, the sorption of crude oil, often spilled on water, was achieved using corn stalk treated with different modifiers. Corn stalk was chemically modified with alkaline hydrogen peroxide (ARCS) and compared with corn stalk enzymatically modified with cellulase R10 (RCCS) and AC (ACCS) to improve the oil sorption capacity. All sorbents were fully characterized by FT-IR, XRD, BET and SEM, and the effects of different experimental factors, such as sorbent dosage, initial oil amount, and sorption time, on the sorption capacity were studied. All modified corn stalks showed a high and rapid oil sorption, and ACCS had the highest sorption capacity, which indicated that enzymatic modification exhibited better performance than chemical modification. The monolayer chemisorption of oil was predominant for all sorbents, and the Langmuir maximum sorption capacity was close to the experimental value, which was in the order of ACCS > RCCS > AHCS (27.03, 20.08 and 16.16 g/g, respectively). These results demonstrated that corn stalk modified by both cellulase and alkaline hydrogen peroxide could be considered to be an efficient and green material to remediate oil spills. (C) 2018 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.