pps proceeding - Abstract Preview
pps proceeding
Symposium: S06 - Polymer Nanocomposites
Oral Presentation
 
 

Oil Diffusion Properties of Superwetting Polyurethane Foams for Ultrafast Oil Spill Cleanup

Guo Puwaner (1)*, Cherukupally Pavani (2), Bilton Amy (1)

(1) University of Toronto - Ontario - Canada, (2) Imperial College London - London - UnitedKingdom

Rapid cleaning of oil spills, especially removing emulsified crude oil, is a global environmental challenge. Recently, superwetting polymer (SWP) foams emerged as an economical solution for ultrafast removal of surface oil and emulsified droplets across broad temperature, pH, and salinity conditions. Our group has also reported tailored foams for targeted removal of different crude oils over variable environmental conditions for practical implementation. However, the field performance of these SWP foams would rely on the variation in kinetic and diffusion properties with controlling parameters, such as oil concentration and temperature, which are yet to be evaluated. In this work, the kinetics and diffusion properties of the SWP foams, pristine polyurethane, and octadecene capped silicon functionalized polyurethane (nanocomposite) were investigated across different pH (acid, neutral, base), temperature (40-80°C), and oil concentrations (1-10%). The data were described using pseudo-second-order kinetic model, Fickian and dual Fickian diffusion models. The results suggest, for both foams, as the temperature increased, the fractional mass uptake and the diffusion rates were increased in agreement with thermal diffusion phenomena. Both foams reached 99% oil removal within five minutes at 80°C, three times faster than at 40°C. Also, due to superwetting properties, the diffusion rate constant was two times higher for the nanocomposite relative to the pristine foam. The diffusion rate only slightly increased for higher concentrations, potentially limited by the foam sorption capacity. The experimental data had good agreement with the dual Fickian model, indicating the oil diffusion is defined by surface chemical wetting and physical clustering mechanisms. In the future, the kinetic and diffusion models will be applied to a wide range of sorbents to enable appropriate selection depending on environmental conditions and create a road map for oil spill response.