Performance of alkali-treated spent coffee ground as potential adsorbent for oil adsorption

Abstract

The increase in food industrial and domestic activities have led to massive generations of oily wastewater with high proportions of fat, oil, and grease (FOG). The growing awareness of the detrimental effects of oil pollutants on the aquatic population and the economy, has made the minimal discharge of FOG into the environment a compulsory mitigative measure. In this work, spent coffee grounds (SCGs) were exploited as an oil adsorbent to minimize the amount of SCGs that are primarily discarded as waste. SCGs were pre-treated with alkali to enhance their performance for adsorbing oil. Batch adsorption tests that consisted of contact time, adsorbent dosage, and temperature for oil adsorption, were carried out to analyse the performance of the alkali-treated SCGs. Based on the results, the maximum oil adsorption capacity was obtained after 150 min of contact time between 0.5g of alkali-treated SCG adsorbents and oil, at 25 °C. These alkali-treated SCGs have also shown the potential for converting wastes into efficient green oil adsorbents.