Characteristics and kinetic study of chitosan prepared from seafood industry waste for oil spills cleanup

Chitosan being a biodegradable material would be an eco-friendly and effective alternative in the cleaning up of oil spills. In the present study, adsorbent (Chitosan) was prepared from the seafood industry waste, prawn shells for removal of oil from aqueous solution. Batch experiments were carried out to study the kinetics for the removal of oil from oil-water solutions using chitosan. The effect of various influencing parameters such as contact time, pH, initial concentration, and mass of adsorbent were studied. The equilibrium time for adsorption of oil on chitosan was obtained as 6 min. The maximum capacity of chitosan to adsorb oil from oil-water solution was found to be 17.96 g g(-1) of adsorbent. The removal efficiency was observed to be higher in the acidic medium. The adsorption properties of chitosan have been attributed mainly to its positive charge. The equilibrium data was tested with the Langmuir isotherm and excellent correlation was obtained.