Treatment of Water Contaminated by Crude Oil Using Flexible Silica Aerogel

In the present study the experimental results of effect of sol-gel parameters on multi cycle absorptiondesorption capacity of flexible silica aerogel for treatment of contaminated water by Persian Gulf crude oil is reported. For this purpose aerogel absorbents were prepared by two step acid-base catalyze method using MTMS precursor. To investigate the effect of sol-gel parameters on absorption efficiency, silica aerogels were prepared under varied Methanol/MTMS and H2O/MTMS molar ratios. The absorption capacity of the aerogels were evaluated under 3 multi absorption-desorption cycles in a wet environment as well as real condition of sea water contamination by Persian Gulf crude oil with degree API of 31. To reduce process time desorption cycles were carried out by applied constant 90 N force using roll milling which is interested industrially. The results reveal that not only sol-gel parameters role a crucial effect on uptake capacity of the resulted absorbents but also nano porous MTMS based silica aerogels are promise materials in oil spill cleanup applications due to their high specific surface area, high porosity, chemical stability and non-toxicity nature of silica element.