Removal of oil spills by novel developed amphiphilic chitosan-g-citronellal schiff base polymer

Ahmed Mohamed Omer; Basant Yossry Eweida; Tamer Mahmoud Tamer; Hesham M A Soliman; Safaa Mohamed Ali; Ahmed Amin Zaatot; Mohamed Samir Mohy-Eldin

doi:10.1038/s41598-021-99241-9

Removal of oil spills by novel developed amphiphilic chitosan-g-citronellal schiff base polymer

Sci Rep. 2021 Oct 6;11(1):19879. doi: 10.1038/s41598-021-99241-9.

Authors

Ahmed Mohamed Omer¹, Basant Yossry Eweida², Tamer Mahmoud Tamer¹, Hesham M A Soliman³, Safaa Mohamed Ali⁴, Ahmed Amin Zaatot⁵, Mohamed Samir Mohy-Eldin⁶

Affiliations

¹ Polymer Materials Research Department, Advanced Technology and New Materials Research Institute (ATNMRI), City of Scientific Research and Technological Applications (SRTA-City), New Borg El-Arab City, P. O. Box: 21934, Alexandria, Egypt.
² Modeling and Simulation Department, Advanced Technology and New Materials Research Institute, City of Scientific Research and Technological Applications (SRTA-City), New Borg El-Arab City, Alexandria, 21934, Egypt.
³ Nanotechnology and New Composite Materials Department Advanced Technology and New Materials Research Institute (ATNMRI), City of Scientific Research and Technological Applications (SRTA-City), New Borg El-Arab City, Alexandria, 21934, Egypt.
⁴ Nucleic Acid Research Department, Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology Research Institute (GEBRI), City for Scientific Research and Technological Applications (SRTA-City), New Borg El-Arab, Alexandria, 21934, Egypt.
⁵ Chemical Engineering Department, Faculty of Engineering, Alexandria University, Alexandria, Egypt.
⁶ Polymer Materials Research Department, Advanced Technology and New Materials Research Institute (ATNMRI), City of Scientific Research and Technological Applications (SRTA-City), New Borg El-Arab City, P. O. Box: 21934, Alexandria, Egypt. mmohyeldin@srtacity.sci.eg.

Abstract

A novel chitosan grafted citronellal (Ch-Cit) schiff base amphiphilic polymer was developed for the adsorptive removal of oil spills. The chemical structure was verified by FT-IR spectroscopy and ¹H NMR spectrometer, while the morphological changes and surface area were investigated by SEM and BET analysis tools. The amphiphilic character of Ch-Cit schiff base was controlled through variation of the grafting percentage (G%) of citronellal from 11 to 61%. Dramatic changes in the ion exchange capacity (IEC), solubility and water uptake profiles were established, while the oil adsorption capacity was founded in direct relation with the G (%) of citronellal. Operational conditions such as oil amount, adsorption time, adsorbent dose and agitation speed were investigated. The developed Ch-Cit schiff base exhibited a higher surface area (115.94 m²/g) compared to neat chitosan (57.78 m²/g). The oil adsorption capacity of the Ch-Cit schiff base was greatly improved by 166% and 120% for light crude and heavy crude oil, respectively. Finally, the adsorption process was optimized using response surface methodology (RSM).The results substantiate that the amphiphilic Ch-Cit schiff base could be efficiently applied as a low-cost oil-adsorbent for the removal of crude oil spills from sea-water surfaces.