A bio-based coating onto the surface Populus fiber for oil spillage cleanup applications

In this study, a “green” oil sorbent was designed based on the combination of a modified lignin, which behaved as bio-based hydrophobic coating to replace the traditional ones (e.g. SiO2 or TiO2), and Populus fibers for oil spillage cleanup. Populus fibers, as matrix, were soaked in acetone solutions with different concentrations of acetylated lignin to prepare oil sorbents under ultrasonic treatment, and then tested for various properties related to oil cleanup. The maximum oil sorption capacity (OSC) of the acetylated lignin-coated sorbent (18.35 g/g, 2% lignin concentration) was 4.7 times higher than that of the uncoated fibers (3.88 g/g), and more importantly, the proposed sorbent showed a high level of recyclability (14.70 g/g) even after four cycles; the adsorbed oil was able to be rapidly recovered by a simple squeezing process. The novel coating method for oil sorbent preparation has not been reported previously. The all-biomass based oil sorbent introduced in this study had a satisfied prospect of being popularized and used in oil spillage treatment industry.