Page 1 of 7

e-ISSN: 2785-924X

Available online at

https://jsst.uitm.edu.my/index.php/jsst Journal of Smart

Science and

Technology

Journal of Smart Science and Technology 4(2) 2024, 47–53.

www.jeeir.com

https://doi.org/10.24191/jsst.v4i2.89

© 2024 by the authors. Submitted for possible open access publication under the terms and conditions of

the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).

©Authors, 2024

The Sorption Studies of Waste Cooking Oil using Raw and

Treated Pineapple Crown Leaf

Rabuyah Ni1*

, Abdul Somad Mustapha Kamal1

, Shahrina Shah Jahan1

, Siti

Hajijah Ismail1

, Harunal Rejan Ramji2

1Faculty of Applied Sciences, Universiti Teknologi MARA, Sarawak Branch, 94300 Kota Samarahan, Sarawak, Malaysia

2Faculty of Engineering, Universiti Malaysia Sarawak, 94300 Kota Samarahan, Sarawak, Malaysia

Citation:

Ni, R., Mustapha Kamal, A. S., Shah Jahan, S., Ismail, S. H., & Ramji, H. R. (2024). The sorption studies of waste cooking oil using

raw and treated pineapple crown leaf. Journal of Smart Science and Technology, 4(2), 47-53.

1* Corresponding author. E-mail address: abuyani@uitm.edu.my

ARTICLE INFO ABSTRACT

Article history:

Received 01 August 2024

Revised 31 August 2024

Accepted 09 September 2024

Published 30 September 2024

The unregulated discharge of pollutants into water bodies has become

an issue that led to pollution. Fiber derived from various forms of

agricultural wastes as the sorbent is widely used as it has a high sorption

capacity and efficiency. It is environmentally friendly and could be cost- effective as it only utilizes the unwanted parts of plants, which usually

would otherwise be discarded. The pineapple crown leaf (PCL) and

other plants with high cellulose content have the potential for

environmental applications. Oil pollutants, particularly waste cooking

oil (WCO) from the food and beverage industry, often contaminate

water bodies due to poor waste management. Using cellulose-rich

plants like PCL could offer an effective solution for absorbing these

pollutants. This study examines the characteristics and sorption

capacities of raw, NaOH-treatment PCL, and carbonized PCL to develop

an effective, eco-friendly method for oil spill remediation. The

methodology involves washing, drying, grinding, and sieving PCL to

obtain a powdered PCL. Then, raw PCL (RPCL) undergoes chemical

treatment with 10% sodium hydroxide, NaOH and thermal treatment at

300 °C. The raw and treated PCL were characterized using Fourier

Transform Infrared Spectroscopy (FTIR). The elimination of some non- cellulosic components in NaOH-treatment PCL (CPCL) and carbonized

PCL (TPCL) observed in the FTIR spectrum would contribute to higher

sorption efficiency and capacity of WCO. In agreement with the results

from FTIR analysis, the highest sorption efficiency in pure oil was

shown by TPCL at 33% and CPCL in slick oil at 16.33%. The highest

value for pure and slick oil recorded for sorption capacity was

9.23 g g

−1

from TPCL samples and 4.3 g g

−1

from CPCL samples. This

Keywords:

agricultural biomass

carbonization

sorption capacity

sorption efficiency

DOI:

10.24191/jsst.v4i2.89

Page 2 of 7

48 Ni et al. / Journal of Smart Science and Technology (2024) Vol. 4 No. 2

https://doi.org/10.24191/jsst.v4i2.89

©Authors, 2024

1 INTRODUCTION

Pineapple or Ananas Comosus has one of the highest cultivated land areas in Malaysia1

. Malaysia

produced over 400,000 to 600,000 metric tons of pineapple fruits annually in 2021, with total revenue of

RM 675.7 million, according to the Malaysia Pineapple Industry Board (MPIB). Sarawak, the second

largest pineapple producer in Malaysia, has an area of 8,429 hectares, with Samarahan being the largest

producer, covering 37% of the total planted areas2

. The increasing demand for pineapple generates a large

amount of waste. Studies have shown that almost 40-80% of pineapple fruit is discarded as waste3

. On the

other hand, the Solid Waste and Public Cleansing Management Corporation (SWCorp) reports that one

household in Malaysia discards 0.9 kg of leftover cooking oil improperly on average. Malaysia has about

5.8 million residences, which translates to 5.22 million kg of cooking oil disposed of per year. Global

vegetable oil production was estimated to be more than 200 million tons in 2019 and 2020 and is expected

to continue to increase in the coming years4

. Without awareness among the community, the oil production

would also increase the amount of WCO released into the water bodies, which would worsen the

environmental issues.

In Malaysia, the cuisine is known for its rich and diverse flavors, which often rely heavily on cooking

oil especially for some local snacks such as fritters, which need to be deep fried using a lot of oil. This

frequently leads to environmental issues related to the disposal of large quantities of used oil. This is not

only in households but also in food and beverage industries, which pose significant environmental

challenges. Common disposal methods, such as dumping oil down the drains or in landfills, contribute to

water pollution, disrupting aquatic ecosystems and endangering wildlife5

. Improper disposal can also

contaminate groundwater and soil, which is harmful to human health and plant growth, and the breakdown

of discarded oil releases unpleasant smells that worsen local air pollution.

Traditional cleanup methods often involve synthetic materials such as chemical dispersants,

synthetic absorbents, and bioremediation6

. While effective in the short term, these materials present

significant challenges due to their limited biodegradability and potential environmental impact7

. Therefore,

there is a need to explore sustainable and effective alternatives for oil sorption. For this, the waste of PCL

was used as a natural sorbent to investigate the effectiveness of these alternatives, considering factors such

as the modification of PCL samples. By measuring the removal efficiency of waste cooking oil (WCO) and

the sorption capacities of raw, chemically, and thermally modified samples helps determine which

treatment of pineapple crown leaves is most effective. This understanding contributes to reducing the

environmental impact caused by improper oil disposal and addresses the issue of pineapple waste. It focuses

on PCL for oil removal and explores their potential as an effective and sustainable method for oil spill

remediation.

2 MATERIALS AND METHODS

The materials and chemicals used include pineapple crowns, waste cooking oil, water, a beaker,

sodium hydroxide (10% NaOH) solution, and deionized water.

2.1 Preparation of PCL

PCL was derived from a pineapple species found in Sarawak and obtained from a local pineapple

farm in Samarahan. The first step was to split the crowns into a single set of leaves. The leaves were oven- dried for 18 hours at 70°C to eliminate moisture and contaminants. Next, the leaves were ground into a

study supports sustainable waste management and green technology for

environmental remediation, highlighting PCL's potential in mitigating

oil pollution and the value of agricultural waste in creating eco-friendly

solutions for oil disposal challenges.

Page 3 of 7

49 Ni et al. / Journal of Smart Science and Technology (2024) Vol. 4 No. 2

https://doi.org/10.24191/jsst.v4i2.89

©Authors, 2024

powder and put through a British Standard Sieve (BSS Sieve) with a 125-850 μm (20-120 mesh) size range.

This sample is known as raw PCL (RPCL). Then, the samples were further treated to obtain chemically

treated (CPCL) and thermally treated (TPCL) samples.

2.2 Treatment of PCL

Chemically treated PCL was prepared using 50 g of washed dried ground PCL and was treated for

1 hour with 500 mL of a 10% NaOH solution at 100 °C with stirring. The mixture was allowed to cool

down at room temperature and then washed with deionized water until the pH was neutral8

. This chemically

treated PCL is then labelled as NaOH-treatment PCL (CPCL). While the thermally treated PCL was

prepared by carbonizing the dried ground PCL in a muffle furnace at 300C for an hour9

.

2.3 Characterisation of PCL

Raw and treated PCL were characterized using Fourier Transform InfraRed (FTIR) spectroscopic

method. FTIR spectra was obtained within the wavenumber range 4,000-600 cm−1 using the ATR method

on a Perkin-Elmer Frontier FTIR.

2.4 Sorption studies

To simulate a cooking oil spillage, two different conditions of oil pollutants were used, which are

pure and slick oil. No additive is added to the pure oil, while the slick oil is prepared by mixing WCO with

water8

. WCO was mixed with water in a beaker and stirred thoroughly at room temperature to ensure the

oil dispersed throughout the water, emulating the conditions of an actual spill. 0.1 g, 0.15 g, 0.2 g, 0.25 g,

and 0.3 g of RPCL, CPCL, and TPCL were added to a mixture of oil spillage consisting of 10 mL WCO

and 90 mL water for 30 minutes. At the end of the process, the mixture was filtered with a netting, and a

mixture of oil and water was centrifuged at 2600 rpm for 5 minutes. Then, oil was obtained using a

micropipette, and its mass was measured. These steps were repeated by replacing slick oil with 100 mL of

pure oil. The formula below was used to determine the sorption efficiency and capacity towards WCO9

.

Sorption Efficiency (%) = (mass of oil removed (g) / initial mass of oil (g)) × 100 (1)

Sorption Capacity = (mass of oil removed (g) / mass of adsorbent (g)) (2)

3 RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

3.1 Characterisation of raw and treated PCL

Based on the IR spectrum in Fig.1 and Table 1, the O-H stretching vibrations, which are indicative

of carbohydrates and phenolic compounds as well as hydrogen bonds appear at 3,334 cm−1

for RPCL, 3,328

cm−1

for CPCL, and 3,337 cm−1

for TPCL. The C-H stretching and bending vibrations, associated with the

saturated alkanes are observed at 2,916 cm−1

and 2,850 cm−1

for RPCL and show minimal shift upon

chemical treatment and thermal processing. The C=O stretching, attributed to hemicellulose and pectin, is

noted at 1,732 cm−1

for both RPCL and CPCL. The C=C stretching vibrations, indicating the presence of

aliphatic and unsaturated aromatic compounds in lignin, appear at 1,603 cm−1

for RPCL and slightly shift

to 1,590 cm−1

for CPCL. Furthermore, the C-O stretching of lignin and hemicellulose is identified at 1,247

cm−1

for RPCL and 1,242 for TPCL. The elimination of non-cellulosic components in CPCL and TPCL

was observed in the FTIR spectrum, as shown in Fig. 1 and Table 1. Finally, the C-O vibrations in

cellulose are consistently present around 1,319-1,375 cm−1

and 1,032-1,034 cm−1

across all treatments.