Application of low-cost waste material from the petroleum industry in wastewater treatment and polymer composites
Date
2022-07-28
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Abstract
In this thesis, diverse applications of solid petroleum waste, including asphaltene and clay, are discussed. As part of this thesis, it is hypothesized that asphaltene and clay interact with polymers and pollutants in wastewater. By interacting with pollutants, they can adsorb pollutants, and by interacting with polymers, they can disperse in polymers, and thus can be used as adsorbents for wastewater treatment and as fillers in polymer composites. To use asphaltene for adsorbing pollutants from wastewater, it is hypothesized that asphaltene functionalization will change the surface properties of asphaltene, leading to enhanced adsorption. Acid-treated asphaltene is used as an adsorbent for the removal of methyl orange from wastewater. Modified asphaltene has a large surface area and oxygen and nitrogen functionalities, leading to 96% removal of MO from 20 mg/L MO solution. Moreover, the Freundlich isotherm model, pseudo-second-order, and intraparticle diffusion models describe the adsorption process very well. In addition, the asphaltene can be easily regenerated using ethanol, and the removal percent is still 64% after five cycles.The second part investigates the compatibility of different asphaltenes, with different polymers including polypropylene (PP), polystyrene (PS), polymethyl methacrylate (PMMA), and polycarbonate (PC). By careful choice of the polarity of asphaltene-polymer pairs, mixing technique, and melt viscosity of the polymer, the dispersion of asphaltenes and final properties of composite materials can be tuned. For example, at 2.5 wt.% of asphaltene, more polar asphaltene showed 26% and 177% larger asphaltene agglomerates in PP and PS, respectively, than the less polar asphaltene. In the third part of this thesis, clay functionalization is hypothesized to improve clay-polymer interactions. Thus, the effect of nanoclay, representative of clay waste from petroleum industry, on dielectric properties in the X-band (8.2-12.4 GHz) of synthesized nitrogen-doped carbon nanotube (N-CNT)/nanoclay/ polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF) nanocomposites is investigated. The incorporation of nanoclay improves the dielectric properties, i.e., the dissipation factor of N-CNT/PVDF nanocomposites. For instance, incorporation of 0.5 wt% nanoclay into N-CNT/PVDF nanocomposite at 1.0 wt% N-CNT loading results in 61% and 57% reduction in the dissipation factor and agglomeration area ratio, indicating improved N-CNT dispersion in PVDF.
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Keywords
Asphaltene, Clay, Polymer composite, Wastewater, Dielectric, Methyl orange, Rheology, Dispersion, Carbon nanotube
Citation
Eshraghian, A. (2022). Application of low-cost waste material from the petroleum industry in wastewater treatment and polymer composites (Doctoral thesis, University of Calgary, Calgary, Canada). Retrieved from https://prism.ucalgary.ca.