Synthesis and characterization of chitosan/Mg-Al layered double hydroxide composite for the removal of oil particles from oil-in-water emulsion

The recovery of oil from oil-in-water emulsion has been investigated using chitosan/magnesium-aluminium layered double hydroxide hybrid composite (CS-LDHCs) by a single co-precipitation method. Resulting better adsorption efficiency of CS-LDHCs could be observed, indicating the synthesized material was effective to adsorb oil particles from oil-in-water emulsion at acidic pH (pH 3.0) than as-prepared LDH and raw chitosan. The enhancement of adsorption properties by CS-LDHCs material were attributed to the high content of LDH in chitosan, which makes the material more effective towards immobilization of oily particles. Batch experiment study has been elucidated by varying different physicochemical parameters such as time, pH, dose, initial oil concentration and temperature. The as-synthesized CS-LDHCs was characterized by various spectro analytical techniques viz., FTIR, SEM with EDAX, XRD, TGA and DSC analysis. To find out the best fit for the sorption process, the obtained adsorption equilibrium data was explained with Freundlich, Langmuir, Dubinin-Radushkevich and Tempkin isotherm models. The mechanism of adsorption process was demonstrated by calculating ΔG°, ΔH° and ΔS° values from thermodynamic parameters in order to understand the nature of sorption process. The schematic representation of oil removal using CS-LDHCs was explored in detail. This work provides an apparent proposal for the growth of oil removal technology.