Hydrophobic High Surface Area Zeolites Derived from Fly Ash for Oil Spill Remediation

Fly ash, a coal combustion byproduct with a predominantly aluminosilicate composition, is modified to develop an inexpensive sorbent for oil spill remediation. The as-produced fly ash is a hydrophilic material with poor sorption capacity. A simple two-step chemical modification process is designed to improve the oil sorption capacity. First, the fly ash was transformed to a zeolitic material via an alkali treatment, which increased the specific surface area up to 404 m² g^–1. Then, the material was surface functionalized to form a hydrophobic material with high contact angle up to 147° that floats on the surface of an oil–water mixture. The reported oil sorption capacities of X-type zeolite sorbent with different surface functionalization (propyl-, octyl-, octadecyl-trimethoxysilane and esterification) were estimated to 1.10, 1.02, 0.86, and 1.15 g g^–1, respectively. Oil sorption was about five times higher than the as-received fly ash (0.19 g g^–1) and also had high buoyancy critical for economic cleanup of oil over water