Beruflich Dokumente
Kultur Dokumente
a r t i c l e
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Article history:
Received 4 May 2014
Received in revised form 2 July 2014
Accepted 14 July 2014
Keywords:
Kapok assemblies
Dual-scale model
Oil sorption coefcient
Kapok lumen
a b s t r a c t
Kapok ber is a natural hollow ber whose assemblies show high oil sorption capacity for various oils.
In this article, a dual-scale model based on Washburn Capillary Theory was developed to study the oil
sorption behavior of kapok assemblies with relation of their pore structure. The validity of this model
was evaluated by oil sorption coefcient obtained from the curve of oil mass increase versus sorption
time, which was measured by a wicking method. Diesel and motor oil were chosen as experimental oils.
It turned out that theoretical values of sorption coefcients of the two oils were highly consistent with
their experimental results. On the basis of theoretical analysis, we found that the big lumen of kapok ber
contributed considerably to the oil sorption capacity of kapok assembly, which was further enhanced with
increasing kapok packing density. At the tightly packed condition of 0.10 g/cm3 , oil absorbed by kapok
lumens accounted for up to one fth of the total oil absorption of kapok assembly for both test oils.
2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
1. Introduction
With the expansion of oil exploration and production activities
around the world, water pollution caused by oil spillage has become
one of the major environmental problems. It was estimated that
22,000 tonnes of oil spilled into marine between 2010 and 2013
alone, forming oil lm on the water by 12 square kilometers per
ton (ITOPF, 2013). To remove and recover the spilled oil, mechanical extraction by sorption materials is regarded as one of the most
desirable choices, as they can concentrate and transform liquid oil
to semi solid or solid phase, which can then be removed from the
water and handed in a convenient manner (Karan et al., 2011).
A large volume of published studies have reported oil removal
and collection by sorption materials. These materials are generally divided into three types: inorganic mineral materials,
synthetic organic materials and natural organic materials. Inorganic mineral sorbents like graphite, perlite, vermiculite, silica,
zeolites and organic clay, are less performed due to their low oil
absorption and inadequate buoyancy. Synthetic organic materials,
primarily polypropylene, show high oil sorption capacity but are
326
(1) All kapok bers in the testing container were of the same diameter and length and arranged vertically.
(2) The pores made of kapok lumens were regarded as a series of
parallel capillary tubes with diameters equating to the inner
diameter of kapok ber.
(3) The pores in inter-ber distances with noncircular crosssectional shapes were considered as a series of parallel capillary
tubes with equivalent diameter dened by hydraulic diameter,
which met the following conditions (Mao and Russell, 2008):
a) The wetted area of capillary tube assembly was identical to
the wetted area of inter-ber pores.
b) The porosity of the capillary tube assembly was the same as
that of inter-ber pores.
Based on the assumption (2), we got the following equation:
dhi = di
(1)
(2)
w
(3)
where f and w are the density of kapok ber and kapok cell wall,
respectively. Therefore, the total porosity , inter-ber porosity e
and inner-ber porosity i were obtained as follows:
= 1 Qw = 1
w
(4)
e = 1 Qf = 1
f
(5)
i = e =
1
1
f
w
Sv (1 e ) = dhe n
e =
2 n
dhe
de
(/4)de2
(6)
4
de
(9)
(10)
cos
dc t
4
(11)
(12)
where A is the cross-sectional area of lled medium, 0 is the porosity of lled medium, l is the liquid density. Therefore, the mass
increase of oil absorbed by kapok lumens Wi and their inter-ber
pores We were obtained by substituting Eqs. (1), (10) into (11) and
(12), respectively, as follows:
Wi2 = A2 12 2i
We2 = A2 12
l cos
di t
4
2e
l cos
de t
(1 e ) 4
(13)
(14)
For the same system (the packing density of kapok assemblies and the type of oil), the ratio between the mass square of
absorbed oil and sorption time is a constant and dened as oil
sorption coefcient (Nishi et al., 2002). In the following section,
comparisons between experimental and theoretical oil sorption
coefcients were carried out to verify the validity of the above
model.
3. Materials and Experiment
3.1. Kapok and oils
The kapok bers used in this study was java kapok got from
Pate County, Java Tengah, Indonesia. The characteristics of the ber
were examined using SEM (TM3000, Hitachi, Japan). Before SEM
observation, kapok bers were immersed in liquid nitrogen and
then fractured to reserve the intact hollow structure of the bers.
As shown in Fig. 1, the ber had a hollow structure with big lumen.
The external diameter, inner diameter and linear density of kapok
were measured according to the methods adopted by Chang (2012).
The densities of kapok ber and kapok cell wall were calculated
according to the following equations:
2
d
4 e
Ao = di2
4
Af =
(7)
(8)
dhe =
Qw =
We used n representing the number of capillary tubes for interber pores and dhe the corresponding hydraulic diameter. Based on
the assumption (3), the following equations were established:
(15)
(16)
327
Ndt =
10, 000G
= 10, 000(Af Ao )w
L
f =
(17)
Af Ao w
(18)
Af
Fig. 2. Contact angles between kapok surface and (a) motor oil, (b) diesel measured
by captive bubble method.
registered as a result of initial contact with the sample, and then its
position was xed for the rest of the experiment. The absorbed oil
mass due to capillary action was detected by the electro-balance
and memorizing on a computer with analog-digital converter.
4. Results and discussions
4.1. Oil sorption behavior of different packed kapok assemblies
The sorption curves of motor oil and diesel at different packing densities of kapok assemblies are presented in Fig. 3(a and b).
Each curve is characterized in triplicate and plotted as average of
three trials with error bars indicating one standard deviation. For
two types of experimental oils, the mass square of oils absorbed
by kapok assemblies, m2 , versus sorption time, t, exhibit notably
linear relationship, which are further enhanced with the increase
of kapok packing density. The least linear relationship appeared at
0.03 g/cm3 might be because the large pores within inter-ber distance did not have sufcient capillary pressure to ll themselves
with oil, as evidenced by Jurins equation (Zhu et al., 2008). When
the liquid rises inside a circular pore of radius r, the capillary force
will be balance by the gravitational force and the liquid will ceases
to rise beyond the equilibrium wicking height h*,
h =
2 cos
l gr
(19)
Table 1
Basic structure parameters of kapok ber.
External diameter de (m)
16.29
14.29
0.65
0.305
1.35
328
Table 2
Properties of experimental oil and its contact angle with kapok ber.
Density (g/cm3 )
Oil type
Motor oil
Diesel
Viscosity (mPa s)
0.87
0.83
30.27 10
27.76 103
257.60
6.50
A2 12
l cos
di
4
3e
l cos
de
(1 e ) 4
(21)
(22)
(a)
5
Contact angle( )
69.05
45.73
(20)
c = ci + ce
3
Different packing densities (g/cm )
0.03
0.04
0.05
0.06
0.07
0.08
0.09
0.10
0
0
500
1000
1500
2000
2500
3000
Time (s)
5
(b)
0
0
10
15
20
25
30
35
To illustrate how kapok lumens affect the oil sorption capacity of kapok assemblies, the theoretical ratios of diesel and motor
oil absorbed by inter-ber pores and kapok lumens under different packing densities were calculated according to Eqs. (13) and
(14). The results expressed by We /Wi are presented in Table 4.
Also the ratios of oil sorption coefcient between their inter-ber
pores and kapok lumens ce /ci and the total porosity , porosity
of lumens i and inter-ber pores e are calculated and listed in
the table. It can be seen that with the increase of packing density, the porosity of kapok lumens is increased, and the inuence
of kapok lumens on the oil sorption capacity of kapok assemblies
is also enhanced signicantly. When the packing density reaches
at 0.10 g/cm3 , oil absorbed by kapok lumens account for up to one
fth of its total oil absorption for both two oils. While compared
with the ratios of We /Wi , the large ratios of ce /ci of motor oil and
diesel at all kapok packing densities suggest that the oil sorption
rate of kapok assemblies is dominantly determined by inter-ber
pores.
40
Time (s)
Fig. 3. (a and b) Plots of m2 versus t for (a) motor oil, (b) diesel absorbed by kapok
bers at different packing densities.
329
Table 3
Comparisons between theoretical and experimental oil sorption coefcients.
Motor oil
Packing density
(g/cm3 )
Diesel
Experimental
0.04
0.05
0.06
0.07
0.08
0.09
1.61
Theoretical
2
Experimental
Theoretical
2
c0
ce
ci
c0
ce
ci
8.300
5.970
4.44
3.347
2.600
1.970
1.590
0.996
0.998
0.991
0.998
0.999
0.999
0.999
8.286
5.906
4.365
3.302
2.536
1.967
1.534
0.015
0.023
0.034
0.046
0.060
0.076
0.094
8.301
5.946
4.399
3.346
2.596
2.043
1.628
536.490
383.010
285.110
216.460
168.780
131.900
107.090
0.996
0.992
0.999
0.997
0.997
0.997
0.998
535.041
381.381
281.875
213.213
163.744
126.994
99.076
0.967
1.511
2.176
2.962
3.869
4.896
6.045
536.008
382.893
284.051
216.175
167.613
131.890
105.121
The unit of oil sorption coefcient in the above table is g2 103 /s.
this does not mean that a lower packing density would be more
desirable for oil sorption, because the large pores within inter-ber
distances will be not lled up with oil when the packing density is less than 0.04 g/cm3 , resulting in insufcient utilization of
kapok assemblies, especially for oil with high density (as depicted
in Fig. 3).
(a)
30
2
3
(a)
20
15
10
0
0.04
0
0
500
1000
1500
2000
2500
3000
0.07
0.08
0.09
0.10
(b)
25
(b)
20
0.06
Time (s)
5
0.05
15
10
0
0
10
15
20
25
30
35
40
Time (s)
Fig. 4. (a and b) Linear ttings of plots of m2 versus t for (a) motor oil, (b) diesel
absorbed by kapok bers at different packing densities.
0.04
0.05
0.06
0.07
0.08
0.09
0.10
330
Table 4
Theoretical ratios of oil absorbed by kapok lumens and their inter-ber pores.
Packing density (g/cm3 )
0.04
0.05
0.06
0.07
0.08
0.09
0.10
Motor oil
ce /ci
We /Wi =
86.89
83.61
83.61
77.05
73.77
70.49
67.21
10.15
12.69
12.69
17.77
20.30
22.84
25.38
552.40
256.78
128.38
71.78
42.27
25.88
16.32
23.50
16.02
11.33
8.47
6.50
5.09
4.04
5. Conclusions
The dual-scale model we have developed tted excellently well
with the actual oil sorption behavior of kapok assemblies. Based on
the theoretical analysis, we found that the big lumen of kapok ber
contributed considerably to the oil sorption capacity of its assemblies, which was further enhanced with increasing packing density.
While the oil sorption rate of kapok assemblies is dominantly determined by inter-ber pores.
Acknowledgments
The research is nancially supported by The Fundamental
Research Funds for the Central Universities and Zhejiang Science and Technology Planning Project for the manufacture and
application of high oil-taking kapok nonwomens (numbered by
2013C31139). The authors are also thankful to Chang M.M. and Sun
X.L. for help with the measurement in determining kapok structure
parameters.
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