MINERAL ABSORBENT EFFIECIENCY ON THE PETROLEUM SPILLS REMOVAL

Mineral absorbents are of great interest for the oil spills removal. Therefore, current investigation tests the removal ability of three commercial products: Zeolit Spectrum, Favisan Clay and professional oil spills removal Adabline II OS. SEM investigation reveals that all compounds relies on small phyllosilicates particles of about 1 – 5 µm accompanied by fewer coarser fractions of 100 – 150 µm. Mineralogical optical microscopy reveals that Zeolit Spectrum and Adabline II OS contains mainly Clinoptilolite while Favisan Clay contains mostly Kaolinite (1 – 10 µm) with some traces of Biotite (5 – 30 µm). These products were tested on diesel and burnt oil spills. The gravimetric measurements reveal the best specific absorption for Clinoptilolite of about 1.26 g/g for diesel and 1.69 g/g for oil while Kaolinite has only 1.04 g/g for Diesel and 1.37 g/g for oil spill. The fact was proved by FTIR spectroscopy revealing the increase of the C=C and C-O. The absorption mechanism was observed by SEM revealing the diesel and oil penetration within the finest mineral clusters, Clinoptilolite being more efficient than Kaolinite which was slightly reluctant because of its hydrophilic nature.