Biosorption of Oil and Heavy Metal Ions from Produced Water Using Sesame Residues

Abstract

With the ever-increasing use of water for municipal and industrial purposes, it has become necessary to appraise water quality on a continuous basis. Crude oil production is accompanied by generation of large volumes of produced water. The produced water contained dissolved and dispersed oil which is hazardous to both human health and aquatic lives. Hence, the objective of this paper was to evaluate the removal of oil, cadmium and lead ions from produced water by sesame pod and stalks collected from farm-site in Bartak Village of Alkaleri Local Government Area, Bauchi State, Nigeria. Effects of loading rate, stirring speed and sorption time were studied.  The results of EDS spectroscopy revealed that sesame pod contained 65.21% C; 18.22% Ca; 13.11% Si; 1.22% K; 0.02% Ag; 1.29% Mg; 0.12% Sr; 0.31% Cu; 0.11% Zn; 0.01% Zr; 0.05% S; 0.31% Rb and 0.02% Na while sesame stalk contained 69.35% C; 13.58% Ca; 14.29% Si; 1.13% K; 0.02% Ag; 1.03% Mg; 0.32% Sr; 0.13% Cu; 0.01% Zn; 0.15% Zr; 0.38% S; 0.13% Rb and 0.14% Na respectively. Biosorption study with the two biosorbent (sesame pod and stalk) showed that both can be used in the removal of oil, cadmium and lead ions from produced water given up to 96.7% oil removal for sesame pod and 97.2% removal for sesame stalk at an equivalent dosage of 1.0 g (for both sesame pod and stalk) per liter produced water after 30minutes equilibrium time and initial oil concentration as high as 435.5 mg/l. Finally, the prepared sesame pod and stalk biosorbents are characterized significantly by their high ability to adsorb oil and suspended solids from produced water, as a result, reduces the economic cost of water treatment.