Study on the effectiveness of thermally treated rice husks for petroleum adsorption

Rice husks, an agricultural waste, were thermally treated and evaluated as an adsorbent for petroleum with the aim of being used as a remediation strategy for petroleum spills. The petroleum sorption capacity was examined for thermally treated rice husks, which mainly composed of amorphous SiO2. Results showed that the petroleum sorption capacity of this material prepared at 700 °C was 15 g/g for heavy crude petroleum. The effects of heating temperature, contact time and petroleum density on the petroleum sorption capacity of thermally treated rice husks were further studied on the basis of phase composition, microstructure and morphology using X-ray diffraction analysis, FTIR spectrometry and scanning electron microscopy (SEM).