Oil removal from crude oil polluted water using banana peel as sorbent in a packed column

A column study was conducted to evaluate efficiency of banana peel as sorbent in the removal of oil from crude oil polluted water. The study was carried out in a packed continuous column with initial oil concentration of 200 mg/L for 6 h. The result showed that increasing the bed height of the packing from 5-30 cm led to an increase in percentage removal of the oil from 87.82 - 97.45% at constant contact time of 20 min and flow rate of 21.6 ml/min (R2=0.9951). This study identifies the banana peel waste as a suitable sorbent to be utilized for continuous remediation of oil from oil polluted water. The maximum uptake of 171.474mg oil was recorded at 25cm bed height, 21.6 mL/min flow rate. The BDST model was used to predict the relationship between service time and bed height, which is essential in column process design. The experimental data gave a fit to the BDST model with R2=0.9929. Keywords: (banana peel, packed column, sorbent, crude oil, polluted water