Waste Chicken Feathers as Sorbents for Hydrocarbon and Non-Hydrocarbon Spills

The freshwater habitat of the Niger Delta region of Nigeria currently faces oil spill challenges which arise not only from Crude oil and its refined products but also animal fats, vegetable oils as well as other nonpetroleum oils. The harmful effect of Spilled Petroleum and non-petroleum oil on the environment stems from their similar chemical and physical properties, which produce harmful effects on the environment. Oil spill remediation is achieved using chemical, biological, or physical processes to sorb oil from the surface of contaminated water. This study investigates the use of waste chicken feathers as sorbents for oil clean-up which is a physical process. The sorption capacity of waste chicken feathers was experimented on water contaminated with vegetable oil, peanut oil and engine oil. The experimental results showed that waste chicken feather have a high oil sorption capacity of 20.59g for Vegetable oil/g of sorbent and low water sorption capacity of 0.98g of water/g of sorbent and are highly oleophilic and hydrophobic. Waste chicken feathers when used for oil spill clean-up, only interacts with the oil at the surface of oil/water mixture, it does not sink or mix with the water below and is not prone to degrading in the water when left for a long period.