SpillFix Oil & Water Absorbtion Capacity

Total Volume held 365 374.4 385Fluid holding capacity % 51.4 52.7 54.2Oil to water partitioning ratio B/A 1.89 2.18 1.85Oil & Water Absorption CapacityReport Prepared By the Sydney Environmental and Soil Laboratory and Australian Government Analytical LaboratoryThree experiments were performed to assess the behavior of SpillFix Universal Organic Absorbent as a pollutioncontrol/containment medium.1. Oil Absorption CapacityIn this experiment used motor oil was used to check the maximum amount of oil that SpillFix Universal Organic Absorbentcan hold. This is important when making recommendations for its use to soak up spills. The Air Filled Porosity/WaterHolding Capacity (AFP/WHC) method and apparatus of AS 3743 was used.Firstly the WHC of the particular batch of SpillFix Universal Organic Absorbent was measured using the conventional AS3743 methodology. It found that 710 mls of SpillFix Universal Organic Absorbent (the volume of an AFP/WHC core) wouldhold about 400mls of water against gravity or a WHC of 56.3%. Note that this occurs with a suction height of 12 cm (ie 12cm deep SpillFix Universal Organic Absorbent).In the oil experiment 4 treatments were set up. Firstly 710 mls of SpillFix Universal Organic Absorbent was measured intoeach of 4 large trays. To each of the treatment trays 100mls, 200mls, 400mls, and 800mls of oil was poured and thoroughlymixed in. SpillFix Universal Organic Absorbent plus oil was then placed back into a 710ml AFP core which rested on a rackto allow oil to drain. The cores were left over the weekend (60 hours) for oil to drain and then the oil draining into the traywas weighed. The density of oil had previously been measured at 0.85g/ml allowing this to be converted to a volume of oil.Results are expressed in Table 1.Table 1. Oil Holding Capacity of SpillFix Universal Organic Absorbent.100mls oil 200mls oil 400mls oil 800mls oilOil drained after 60 hours mls 0.0 0.0 75 396Oil retained or held mls 100 200 325 404Oil holding capacity as % v/v 14.1 28.2 45.8 56.9Discussion and Conclusions: These results appear to show an unexpected “enhancement” effect, i.e. that the more oil that isadded the more will be held. Plotting the results on a graph (see appendix) demonstrates that there is actually an asymptoteto this, i.e. that the maximum oil holding ability levels off at about 405 mls /710mls SpillFix Universal Organic Absorbent or57%.One explanation for this “enhancement effect” is that the material swells in the presence of oil quite noticeably and thiswould increase its oil holding ability.An interesting observation is that the oil holding capacity is not dissimilar to the water holding capacity.A fair conclusion to allow for all situations would be that the material will hold a minimum of 40% of its volume of oil in allconceivable circumstances. To claim 50% would be reasonable in nearly every instance. « Back to top2. Separation of Oil/Water MixturesA potentially important application is to use the material to remove oil from the surface of waters or to separate by filtrationoil from water.In this experiment three AFP/WHC cores were filled with 710mls of SpillFix Universal Organic Absorbent. These were thenemptied into each of three tough plastic bags and emulsified oil/water mixtures were added. This was achieved by rapidlyshaking 500mls water with each of 100, 200, and 400mls of oil and rapidly pouring the milky emulsion into the plastic bagbefore the oil and water separated again. Contents of the bag were stirred and shaken thoroughly and left for about onehour to full soak up their contents.Contents were then emptied carefully back into the three AFP cores and left 60 hours to thoroughly drain. The volumes ofwater and oil draining from the cores was then measured. Results are given in Table 2.Table 2. Oil/Water separation results.Treatment 100mls oil/500mls water water 200mls oil/500mls water 400mls oil/500mls waterTotal Volume added 600 700 900Water Drained mls 235 300 345Oil Drained mls 0 25.6 170Water held mls and (as % of added) - A 265 (53%) 200 (40%) 155 (31%)Oil held mls and (as % of added) - B 100 (100%) 174.4 (87.2%) 230 (57.5%)Water held mls and (as % of added) - A 265 (53%) 200 (40%) 155 (31%)Oil held mls and (as % of added) - B 100 (100%) 174.4 (87.2%) 230 (57.5%)Discussion and Conclusions: The “enhancement effect” of increasing fluid holding capacity with increasing oil addition isalso evidence here but to a smaller extent than with adding oil alone. Also, swelling was again seen with added oil.The interesting effect also is the “partitioning effect” that is, in the presence of an oil/water mixture the SpillFix UniversalOrganic Absorbent preferentially absorbs oil over water. The results also demonstrate a “competitive effect” in that, if thepreference for oil was absolute then no matter how much water was added the oil would be exclusively held. This is not thecase and clearly, from the first experiment the SpillFix Universal Organic Absorbent should have been able to hold between300 and up to 400mls of oil which it cannot do in the presence of excess water. The net result is that while oil is preferredover water increasing amounts of water have an adverse effect on oil retention.A rough “partitioning ratio” can be estimated from the proportion of oil added and held vs the proportion of water added andheld. These are given in the final row of the table. The average of the three ratios is 1.97 or about 2. It is thus true to saythat SpillFix Universal Organic Absorbent shows twice the affinity for oil as for water.This can be translated into a recommendation. The total fluid holding capacity is about say 52%. If presented with say 2liters of 40% oil/ 60% water emulsion 1 liter of SpillFix Universal Organic Absorbent could be predicted to absorb 520mls ofthe mixture and of this 520 mls twice as much will be oil as water or about 346 mls oil and 173mls water. Thus if the 2 literswas 40% oil or 800mls of oil then 1 liter of SpillFix Universal Organic Absorbent would remove 43% of the oil.How much SpillFix Universal Organic Absorbent is required to remove all the oil is a more difficult calculation. Actually a40/60 oil water emulsion is higher in oil than most real life situations. Take a 5% oil film on 95% water, say 10 liters of it or500mls oil on 9.5litres water. How much SpillFix Universal Organic Absorbent is required to remove all the oil but leave asmuch water as possible?Assuming the total fluid holding capacity of 52% is composed of 2/3 oil and 1/3 water (partitioning coefficient of 2) then whileholding 500mls oil the SpillFix Universal Organic Absorbent must also hold 250mls water or a total fluid capacity of 750 mls.Divide this by 0.52 (the fluid holding capacity) we get 1442 mls of SpillFix Universal Organic Absorbent. This should removeall the oil and only 250mls of water. A check of this was made adding 1500mls of SpillFix Universal Organic Absorbent to abucket containing 9.5 liters water and 500mls of oil. This was then stirred for a few minutes every hour for 3 hours. Uponremoval of the floating SpillFix Universal Organic Absorbent very little oil (less than 10mls) was left.A general recommendation would be that the maximum oil removal can be obtained by adding three times as much SpillFixUniversal Organic Absorbent as the anticipated oil volume. For optimum and complete removal this could be increased tosay a factor of four. ie to completely clean up 1 liter of oil off water will require 3-4 liters of SpillFix Universal OrganicAbsorbent. « Back to top3. Landfill Leachate TestsLandfill leachate occurs as a result of water flowing through waste landfills’ especially uncontrolled landfills which are notcaped properly. It is common to find soluble zinc, phenols, cyanide, and ammonium in landfill leachates.Methodology: A mocklandfill leachate solution wasmade to the following approximatespecification-In each of five 1 literbeakers 500mls of leachatesolution was added. To eachbeaker a series of SpillFix UniversalOrganic Absorbent additiveswere made to give thefollowing experimental design-Zinc 10 mg/l using zinc acetatePhenol 50 mg/lCyanide 20mg/l using potassium cyanideAmmonium 100 mg/l using ammonium chloride.Treatment mls leachate mls SpillFix - IA0 500 01 500 1002 500 2003 500 4004 500 600Beakers were stirred occasionally over 4 hours then filtered to obtain test solution. Test solutions were then analyzed forthe four contaminant components. Australian Government Analytical Laboratory measured Cyanide and phenol, SydneyEnvironmental and Soil Laboratory measured ammonium and zinc by routine methods. The following results were obtained-Treatment mls MIA/500mls Ammonium mg/l Zinc mg/l Phenol mg/l Cyanide mg/l0, 0 70.6 10.3 20.0 12.00, 100 53.6 0.2 17.0 10.02, 200 44.4 < 0.2 19.0 12.03, 400 37.7 < 0.2 12.0 8.34, 600 34.3 0.2 11.0 5.9Water held mls and (as % of added) - A 265 (53%) 200 (40%) 155 (31%)Oil held mls and (as % of added) - B 100 (100%) 174.4 (87.2%) 230 (57.5%)Discussion: All contaminants show a reduction upon the addition of coir to the contaminated water. The absorption ofammonium is likely to be by simple cation exchange and is characteristically non linear. The pattern shown here ofdiminishing ammonium removed as more SpillFix Universal Organic Absorbent is added is very typical of an “exchangeisotherm” (Sposito 1989). The relationship fundamentally says that as the concentration of ammonium external to the SpillFixUniversal Organic Absorbent exchange sites increases the absorbent will absorb (or exchange) more ammonium, or viceversa, as the ammonium level outside the exchange site decreases it will absorb less ammonium. This essentially says thatcan never be eliminated except at infinite SpillFix Universal Organic Absorbent concentrations. This is typical of exchangereactions and also phosphate removal from solution which is also concentration dependant. It is also dependant on thepresence of other ions on the SpillFix Universal Organic Absorbent and could be improved where certain ions are absent(for example potassium which is much like ammonium in size and shape).From this experiment the best we can achieve is to approximately halve an ammonium concentration of 70mg/l by addingequal quantities of SpillFix Universal Organic Absorbent to water. This will change depending on the initial ammoniumconcentration.Zinc behaves differently to ammonium. This is essentially because Zinc is a “preferred exchange ion” and does not competewith sodium, potassium, calcium and all the other exchange ions being greatly preferred over these other ions. This istypical of all the high molecular weight (heavy) metals. It would appear that levels of zinc significantly higher than 10 ppmcan be totally removed from the solution. This is likely to be the case for a range of other high molecular weights metals.It can be calculated that the specific absorption capacity of SpillFix Universal Organic Absorbent for zinc is at least50.5mgZn per liter of SpillFix Universal Organic Absorbent. As stated it could be significantly higher than this, we did notuse a lower SpillFix Universal Organic Absorbent content than 100mls. If we had used 50mls we might demonstrate greatercapacity.Phenol and cyanide show a different trend with significant reductions only occurring at 400 and 600mls/0.5l (800 to 1200 mlsSpillFix Universal Organic Absorbent per liter of water). The mechanism for removal of these contaminants is likely to bephysisorbtion rather than cation exchange (both are weak acids which means they are negatively charged).In a practical sense, once about 50/50 SpillFix Universal Organic Absorbent and water ratio is exceeded the water has to besqueezed out of the absorbent as no free water remains. « Back to topSummarySpillFix Universal Organic Absorbent will absorb significant quantities of oil. It is likely that its oil, solvent, or water totalholding capacity are all similar at around 55% by volume. Applying a small safety margin a simple recommendation wouldbe that, for oil or solvent absorption in the absence of water, twice as much SpillFix Universal Organic Absorbent as thevolume of oil to be absorbed is required. If you need to soak up 1 liter of oil use 2 liters of SpillFix Universal OrganicAbsorbent.