Adsorbent preparation and characterisation
The segregated hairs were soaked in hot water and washed
several times with detergent. Then, they were rinsed with hot
water and dried in natural sunlight for 48 h. The morphology and
cross sections of a sample of each of the three different hair types
(A, B and C) were examined using a JEOL scanning electron
microscope model JSM 5410LV (JEOL (SEM), Japan).
Sorption experiments
Adsorption experiments were conducted in artificial seawater,
which was prepared artificially as has been previously described by
Kester et al. [26]. Table 2 shows the composition of the artificial sea
water. 20 g of crude oil, vegetable oil and diesel fuel, were poured
into separate 500 ml conical flask with 200 ml of seawater. Varying
amounts of the sorbents (0–8 g) were added with a 60 min contact
time following the ASTM F 726-99 standard method for testing oil
spill sorbents [27]. Oil concentrations were measured based on
US-EPA method 1664 [28]. Oil adsorption capacities (mg/g) were
obtained from the following equation: