Adsorption is a widespread and effective way of treating sewage containing petroleum products. To implement this method, one of the best sorbents is activated carbon. However, sorbents based on activated coals are of high cost and require further regeneration, which significantly increases the cost of water treatment. In addition, during the regeneration of such sorption materials secondary toxic waste is formed, which also create environmental problems. Therefore, the development of new efficient and inexpensive sorption materials, especially on the base of a variety of wastes, is an urgent task.
For research, we used tree waste of the genus of horse chestnut (Latin Aésculus hippocastanum L.). Horse chestnut is widespread in the midland of the Russian Federation, CIS countries, Southern Europe. According to municipal services about 5.000 chestnut trees grow on the territory of a city with a population of about 400.000 people and tree waste of the trees covering streets and square every year. Tree waste is nowhere used and removed to landfills.
Extraction of I-20A spindle oil from model emulsions by native and thermal modified chestnut tree waste as a sorption material in industry was carried out because this oil is a widely used petroleum product. The physicochemical properties of tree waste, such as bulk density, humidity, ash content, pH of aqueous extract, specific surface area are studied.
Before extraction, the chestnut tree waste was ground to a size of 3-5 mm. Thermal treatment was carried out in a drying cabinet of the type SNOL and muffle furnace in the temperature range 100-500 C. It is established that during the thermal treatment the specific surface area of the sorption material increases from 2.6 to 27.9 m2/ g. The surface of micro relief structure changes in the direction of increasing roughness and defectiveness; sorption material acquires hydrophobic properties. The recommended thermal treatment temperature is 200 C. The efficiency of cleaning model emulsions is 91%.