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Journal of Smart Science and Technology 4(2) 2024, 47–53.
www.jeeir.com
https://doi.org/10.24191/jsst.v4i2.89
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©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
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©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.
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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 300C 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.