Nonwoven textiles for treatment of wastewaters to remove petroleum products

Abstract

677.026.4:677.017.632 and V. M. GorchakovaThe expediency of using washed polypropylene fibres with a linear density of 0.33 tex treated with an organosilicon water repellent in the amount of 7% of the weight of the fibre for production of sorption filter material was demonstrated. The nonwoven filter material is recommended for treating wastewaters and removing petroleum products from the surface of water.A significant proportion of the total toxic industrial wastes is constituted by petroleum derivatives. The content of petroleum products in wastewaters entering municipal sewage systems can reach 50-100 mg/liter. The intensive demand for creation of modern technologies to prevent and eliminate the consequences of oil spills and entry of petroleum products into the environment makes it necessary to develop a market for effective, mobile, and relatively inexpensive environmental services. Adsorption is the basis of many current technologies for collecting petroleum product spills. Natural sorbents in the form of powders or granules are used for its implementation. We developed nonwoven materials (NM) with elevated sorption properties. In contrast to natural sorbents, due to the specific features of their structure, NM are an attractive sorbing base for creating a new generation of modern technical means and technologies for protecting the environment from pollution by petroleum products.From the point of view of an ideal sorbent, NM and articles made from them are the most promising. Their structural characteristics ensure selective sorption with respect to hydrocarbons in the presence of water and make it possible to regulate the retentivity and sorption capacity of the sorbent, the determining characteristics in assessing its performance properties. The efficacy of treatment of wastewaters to remove petroleum products by different methods is represented in Table 1.Improving the structural characteristics, which are determined by the chemical nature and properties of the initial fibres, the structure of the fibre web, and the structure of the surface of the fibres, is a promising direction in increasing the sorption capacity of nonwoven sorption-protective materials. The fibres used for production of nonwoven sorption filter materials must be resistant to aggressive media and have a high sorption capacity. The dependence of the sorption capacity of NM on the nature of the fibre is shown in Table 2.Polypropylene fibre has valuable performance properties: high strength, extremely low hygroscopicity, the lowest density, and high chemical resistance. We used polypropylene fibres of different linear density to fabricate NM.An important property of NM for collecting petroleum products from the surface of water is the buoyancy, and two characteristics are used to evaluate it: the absorbability and the permeability. The absorbability is the ability of a material to absorb water on contact of one side of the material with the water for a given time and the permeability is the ability of water to penetrate through the thic...