Recycling of thermoplastic polystyrene waste using citrus peel extract for oil spill remediation

摘要

In this work, we report a low-cost, less energy intensive, and an innovative way of recycling thermoplastic polystyrene (PS) waste objects into submicron, aligned fibers using extract from citrus peel, an agricultural waste. As-fabricated recycled PS fabric is then structurally characterized and tested as an oil sorbent material. The hydrophobic-oleophilic PS fabric is found to absorb 40.5 +/- 3.6 g/g of oil, with 77.3% oil retention within 1 h. To investigate the practical application of recycled PS fabric for oil spills remediation, we tested its buoyancy properties in oil-over-water static and dynamic system besides examining their reusability. The as-fabricated fabric floats on water after oil sorption indicating its high buoyancy and therefore can be collected easily after soaking the oil. This work is a simple illustration of systematic analysis of recycling two different waste materials (thermoplastic polystyrene and citrus peels) and reusing them into a more valuable product. (c) 2019 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Appl. Polym. Sci. 2019, 136, 47886.