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SEPARATION OF OIL AND WATER USING

SUGARCANE BAGASSE

NOOR ATIKAH BINTI MOHD BADRUDDIN

A thesis submitted in fulfilment

of the requirements for the award of the Degree of
Bachelor of Chemical Engineering

Faculty of Chemical & Natural Resources Engineering

Universiti Malaysia Pahang

JANUARY 2012
 vii

ABSTRACT

Sugarcane bagasse is one of the agricultural residues from sugar making industry. The
usage of this organic waste has not been widely discovered here in Malaysia. In
Malaysia sugar industry, estimated one tons of sugarcane generates 280 kg of bagasse.
Sugarcane bagasse is a very good fibrous organic waste beside have a very high content
of carbon. This research will be investigate the effectiveness of sugarcane bagasse as a
material to adsorp oil and water. Other than that, the study is to increase the usage of
sugarcane bagasse and reduce the number of organic waste produce by the industry.
Raw bagasse and bagasse that is modified using sulphuric acid is used to determined the
effectiveness of sugarcane bagasse as material to separate oil, which is in this research,
crude palm oil is used. The research are done with different weight of bagasse for each
bagasse sample and different size of bagasse. As a result, sugarcane bagasse can adsorp
oil from the oil sample because of the high carbon content and adsorption is one of
method for separation. The particle size are one of the factors effecting the adsorption
capacity. The smaller particle size have greater surface area have higher adsorption
capacity. Raw bagasse can adsorp more compare to that is modified using sulphuric
acid. Chemical modification by using only sulphuric acid is not signifacantly increasing
the adsorption capacity of the bagasse. Sugarcane bagasse can be one of the material to
separate oil and water as an alternative method of separation. This alternative method
can be used as one of the method to separate oil from water for cleaning the waste oil
from oil spills as well as a method to separate oil from palm oil industrial waste.
 viii

ABSTRAK

Hampas tebu adalah salah satu daripada sisa pertanian daripada industri pembuatan
gula. Sisa organik ini tidak digunakan secara meluas di Malaysia. Dalam industri gula di
Malaysia, dianggarkan satu tan daripada tebu menghasilkan 280 kg hampas. Hampas
tebu adalah sangat baik kerana sisa organik ini bergentian dan mempunyai kandungan
karbon yang sangat tinggi. Kajian ini akan menyiasat keberkesanan hampas tebu
sebagai bahan untuk menyerap minyak dan air. Selain daripada itu, kajian ini adalah
untuk meningkatkan penggunaan hampas tebu dan mengurangkan bilangan hasil sisa
organik oleh industri. Hampas tebu yang mentah dan hampas yang diubah suai secara
kimia dengan menggunakan asid sulfurik digunakan untuk menentukan keberkesanan
hampas tebu sebagai bahan untuk menyerap medium yang berasingan, dimana dalam
penyelidikan ini, minyak sawit mentah digunakan. Penyelidikan dilakukan dengan
mengkaji berat yang berbeza untuk setiap sampel hampas dan juga hampas yang
berlainan saiz. Hasilnya, hampas tebu boleh menyerap minyak dari sampel minyak
kerana kandungan karbon yang tinggi dan penyerapan merupakan salah satu kaedah
untuk memisahkan dua medium berbeza. Hampas yang tidak diubah suai boleh
menyerap lebih banyak minyak berbanding dengan hampas yang diubah suai secara
kimia dengan menggunakan asid sulfurik. Pengubahsuaian kimia hampas tebu dengan
hanya menggunakan sulfurik asid sahaja tidak mampu untuk meningkatkan keupayaan
serapan hampas tebu dengan ketara. Hampas tebu boleh dijadikan salah satu bahan
untuk mengasingkan minyak dan air. Kaedah alternatif ini boleh dijadikan sebagai salah
satu kaedah untuk mengasingkan minyak dari air untuk tujuan membersihkan sisa
minyak dari tumpahan minyak dan juga sebagai kaedah untuk mengasingkan minyak
dari sisa industri minyak sawit.
 ix

TABLE OF CONTENT

Page
SUPERVISOR’S DECLARATION ii
STUDENT’S DECLARATION iv
DEDICATION v
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT vi
ABSTRACT vii
ABSTRAK viii
TABLE OF CONTENT ix
LIST OF TABLES xi
LIST OF FIGURES xii

CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION

1.1 Background of study 1

1.2 Problem Statement 3
1.3 Research Objective 4
1.4 Scope of Study 5
1.5 Rationale and Significance of Study 6

CHAPTER 2 LITERATURE REVIEW

2.1 Introduction 7
2.2 Sugarcane Bagasse 8
2.2.1 Chemical Composition 8
2.2.2 Application of sugarcane bagasse 10
2.3 Activated Carbon 11
2.4 Adsorption Process 12
2.5 Conclusion 13
 x

CHAPTER 3 METHODOLOGY

3.1 Introduction 14
3.2 Materials 14
3.3 Apparatus 15
3.3.1 Industrial Grinder 15
3.3.2 Oven 15
3.3.3 Sieve Shaker 16
3.3.4 Electronic weight scale 16
3.4 Experimental Procedure 17
3.4.1 Preparation of the sample 17
3.4.2 Data collection 19

CHAPTER 4 RESULT AND DISCUSSION

4.1 Introduction 20
4.2 Result 21
4.2.1 Adsorption of crude palm oil using raw bagasse 21
4.2.2 Adsorption of crude palm oil using modified bagasse 23
4.2.3 Comparison of adsorptivity and sorption capacity between 25
raw bagasse and modified bagasse
4.3 Discussion 27

CHAPTER 5 CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATION

5.1 Conclusion 30
5.2 Recommendation 31

REFERENCES 32
APPENDICES 34
A Pictorial method 34
 xi

LIST OF TABLES

Table no. Title Page

2.1 Analysis of chemical content of sugarcane bagasse 9
3.1 Data collection table for adsorption of oil using raw bagasse 19
3.2 Data collection table for adsorption of oil using modified 19
bagasse
4.1 Adsorption of oil using raw bagasse 21
4.2 Adsorption of oil using modified bagasse 23
 xii

LIST OF FIGURES

Figure no. Title Page

2.1 Sugarcane Plant that used in production of Sugar 8
2.2 Chemical Composition of Sugarcane Bagasse 9
2.3 Sugarcane 10
2.4 Fresh sugarcane Bagasse 11
3.1 Industrial grinder 15
3.2 Oven 15
3.3 Laboratory sieve shaker 16
3.4 Analytical weight 16
4.1 Effect size of raw bagasse on the adsorptivity 21
4.2 Effect size of raw bagasse on the sorption capacity 22
4.3 Effect size of modified bagasse on the adsorptivity 23
4.4 Effect size of modified bagasse on the sorption capacity 24
4.5 Comparison of adsorptivity for both raw bagasse and modified 25
bagasse
4.6 Comparison of sorption capacity for both raw bagasse and 25
modified bagasse
 1

CHAPTER 1

INTRODUCTION

1.1 Background of Study

Recently, agricultural products have been rapidly increasing with the number of
consumer demand. The increases of the usage of the raw material for production, the
number of by-product are also increasing. In Malaysia, the amount of organic waste
such as sugarcane bagasse, rice straw and rice husk are a lot. Usually these types of by-
product are used as animal feed or mostly used as a fuel to generate the boiler mill (D.
Kalderis et al., 2008).

Sugarcane or its scientific name Saccharum officinarum is a by-product in large

industries which is sugar industries. The abundant amount of sugarcane bagasse from
the extraction of juice for the productions of juice are ready for utilize but it’s very
limited. Reported that one tons of sugarcane generates 280 kg of bagasse, which is the
fibrous by-product remain after the extraction of juice for the production of sugar.
Mostly, by-product are just used as burned source for sugar mill to generate energy or
being burned down (Suhardy et al., 2007) and that cause air pollution.
 2

Oil pollution, usually occur in the sea, rivers or any navigable waters, has
became a serious issue in the world. Oil pollution in the sea steadily increased with the
increase of oil consumption (M. Hussien, 2008). Usually in the wide ocean, crude
petroleum oil becoming the major issues of oil spilling. The wastewater release from
palm oil company also becoming major issue as the content of oil in the wastewater can
affect the waste drainage system and the environment.

As oil pollution became a serious concern, the issues of cleaning the

environment arise. To come out with the way in cleaning the oil, it doesn’t only concern
about the effectiveness of the method also the cost of it. Hence, by using this type of
material (agriculture residue), it not only cost effective, and it also are able to release the
oil effectively. Current studies show that not only oil adsorbing properties of material
but also the recycle of these materials is important (Deschamps et al, 2003).
 3

1.2 Problem Statement

There are huge amount of sugarcane bagasse obtain from sugar production but
the utilization of it’s still limited. As sugarcane bagasse is one of the raw materials that
have high carbon content, it should be used as a more useful raw material in other type
of field or industries. Oil spills have been deteriorating land and decreasing the
groundwater quality. When oil spills happens, the water system is affected. Oil pollution
remains a serious concern. It leads to oil waste contamination in the water. With the
structure of sugarcane bagasse which contains of fibre and high carbon content, it can
become an adsorbent to adsorb the oil from water.

The same problem occur at the palm oil mill where the wastewater must be
release with the content of oil in it at effecting the quality of wastewater can be release.
Wastewater treatment needs to improve in order to make the oil separated with the
water and the wastewater can be treated normally. The cost would be high if other
method used for example skimming the oil from water and so on. By using agricultural
waste, the cost is lower and the sources are easy to get. The methods commonly used to
remove oil involve oil booms, dispersants, skimmers, sorbents etc. The main limitations
of some of these techniques are their high cost and inefficient trace level adsorption
(Wardley-Smith, 1983).
 4

1.3 Research Objective

The objectives of this research are

i. To increase the usage of by-product of sugar, the sugarcane bagasse as one of
the way to reduce the organic waste.
ii. To investigate the effectiveness of sugarcane bagasse to adsorb oil from water.
 5

1.4 Scope of Study

In this research, the parameters that will be measure are the particle size, which
is the size of the sugarcane bagasse. The size of sugarcane bagasse will be manipulated
and the effect of the particle size towards the effectiveness of the sugarcane bagasse as
oil adsorbent will be measure. Next is to manipulate the weight of the bagasse. There
will be 3g and 5g of bagasse to be tested and the effect of weight towards the adsorption
rate will be measure. Finally, the bagasse will be divided into raw bagasse and modified
bagasse. Modified bagasse is consists of raw bagasse that is modified using the
sulphuric acid.
 6

1.5 Rationale and Significance of Study

The abundant amount of organic waste should be utilize more wisely because
organic waste are obviously a cheaper residue compare to others which involve
chemical used, and also the cost of production. By using sugarcane bagasse for
example, organic waste could be used more widely as an adsorbent to adsorb oil, in the
oil industry whether petroleum industry or palm oil industry. To make the
environmental issues better in the future, this study will help to widen the usage range
of agricultural residue and also pollution problem. People are usually not interested in
making organic waste as an alternative to reduce the pollution or make it a product to
minimize the cost of production.

Besides that, this research also determines the best condition of sugarcane
bagasse as an adsorbent. It is based on the scope of study where the size of the
sugarcane bagasse gives an important effect towards the adsorptivity of the bagasse.
The sugarcane bagasse also chemically modified with sulphuric acid to determine the
effectiveness of the sugarcane bagasse as an adsorbent.
 7

CHAPTER 2

LITERATURE REVIEW

2.1 Introduction

Agricultural industries are rapidly increases in Malaysia, but the waste of this
industry are not well managed. The huge numbers of organic waste have not been fully
utilize (Suhardy et al., 2007). Organic waste have a high potential as an alternative way
of producing many thing for example paper, separation material and also filter. This is
because the chemical compositions of this organic waste are not being discovered.
There are organic waste such as rice husk, coconut husk, rice straw and sugarcane
bagasse that have high adsorption capacity. This is due to the existence of activated
carbon in the composition of the agricultural by-product (D.Kalderis et al., 2008).
 8

Figure 2.1 - Sugarcane Plant that used in production

of Sugar

2.2 Sugarcane Bagasse

Sugarcane bagasse is an agricultural residue of sugar production in industry

scale also the by-product of cane juice. Sugarcane bagasse is usually being used as
combustion material in the industry for the boiler (L.Sene et al., 2002). Currently,
sugarcane bagasse are being utilize because it is inexpensive raw material. This material
has many advantages. The advantages are, because of the rapid growth of the sugar-
cane plant, widespread cultivation, lower energy and bleaching chemical requirements
for bagasse refining. From the production itself, raw bagasse is very easy to obtain as
for one tonne of refined sugar results in two tonnes of bagasse.

2.2.1 Chemical composition

The chemical composition of sugarcane bagasse is the reason of its usage as

alternative materials for various industries (Pandey et al., 2000). Sugarcane bagasse
contains 50% cellulose, 25% hemicelluloses, and 25% lignin (Zandersons et al., 1999).
This composition is relatively resistant to biodegradation. Besides that, sugarcane
bagasse is well-known for the high activated carbon content which is the main reasons
for being a good adsorbent. Sugarcane bagasse also has 9.78% content of silica and
90.22% content of carbon (Suhardy et al., 2007). This is the reason of sugarcane
bagasse have high activated carbon.
 9

Content of Silica Content of Carbon

9.78% 90.22%

Table 2.1 - Analysis of chemical content of sugarcane bagasse

retrieve from School of Materials, Bioprocess and Environmental Engineering,
Universiti Malaysia Perlis(UniMAP)

Figure 2.2 - Chemical Composition of Sugarcane Bagasse

 10

2.2.2 Application of sugarcane bagasse

The cellulose content in sugarcane bagasse is useful in paper making industry.

As another usage of agricultural residue, sugarcane bagasse is used as an alternative raw
material in making paper. The Sugar Cane Paper Company located in San Francisco has
commercially used bagasse in making paper and also tableware product. This is because
of other than cellulose content, the fibrous content of sugarcane bagasse can make the
paper made of bagasse as good as paper made from tree.
(thesugarcanepapercompany.com)

Figure 2.3 – Sugarcane

Sugarcane bagasse was used as a biofilters for the treatment of benzene-

contaminated airstreams. The sugarcane bagasse act as filtration agent to treat
contaminates benzene in an air streams. The sugarcane bagasse as a biofilter has been
discovered and the percentage of removal of contaminated benzene in air stream is 52%
for raw sugarcane bagasse and 53% for sieve sugarcane bagasse (M.Zilli, 2004).
Besides benzene contaminated air streams, sugarcane as biofiltration is used in removal
of BTEX in volatile organic compounds (VOCs) which is the major group of pollutant.
BTEX which contains of benzene, toluene, ethyl benzene and o-xylene from VOCs can
be removed by using biofilter. It was nearly 100% removal of BTEX achieve as the
sugarcane bagasse is used as biofilter (A. K. Mathur, 2006).
 11

Before new technologies of using sugarcane bagasse as air filter or used in paper
making, sugarcane bagasse usually used as raw material in production process or as
fuel. Bagasse is usually used as boiler fuel at sugar factory. The combustion of bagasse
provides enough heat and this could avoid the usage of fossil fuel. The ash from
combustion of bagasse is also used as fertilizer or production of construction material.
(P. A. O. George, 2010)

Figure 2.4 - Fresh sugarcane bagasse

2.3 Activated Carbon (AC)

Activated carbon is a material commonly used in increasing number of

environmental applications, in environment protection, in water and wastewater
treatment and also air filter (D.Kalderis et al., 2008). It can be produce with any
material that has rich carbonaceous such as rice husk and sugarcane bagasse. AC can be
a great adsorbent if being treat towards some chemical or physical process. It is called
the activation process through the pyrolysis and chemical impregnation with chemical
solution (D.Kalderis et al., 2008).

Activated carbon that prepared from sugarcane bagasse is used in sugar

industries for the removal of colorants from sugar liquor. It is found out that the bagasse
from the sugar industry have been used to prepared an activated carbon and used again
in the industry. Besides that, it has been used for treatment water and industrial
wastewater as an adsorbent of polluted substances (Khadija Qureshi, 2008). Activated
 12

carbon from sugarcane bagasse has high adsorptive capacity compare to other. (Khadija
Qureshi, 2008).

There are other agricultural residues that have been used to make an activated
carbon. Besides sugarcane bagasse, rice husk, nut shells, peat, wood and many more (
D. Kalderis, 2008). Comparing between activated carbon made from rice husk with
sugarcane bagasse, activated carbon from sugarcane bagasse have the best adsorption
behaviour towards the adsorption of polluting substances which is landfill leachated (D.
Kalderis, 2008)

2.4 Adsorption process

Adsorption is one of the separation processes. There are many type of separation
process which includes;
 Adsorption
 Centrifugation and cyclonic separation
 Chromatography
 Crystallization
 Distillation
 Drying
 Evaporation
 Extraction

Adsorption process define as one or more components of a gas or liquid stream are
adsorbed on the surface of a solid adsorbent and a separation is accomplished
(Geankoplis, 2003). It is different from absorption, in which a substance diffuses into a
liquid or solid to form a solution. Other than that, the term sorption encompasses both
processes, while desorption is the reverse process. Adsorption is operative in most
natural physical, biological, and chemical systems, and is widely used in industrial
applications such as activated charcoal, synthetic resins and water purification.
 13

There are many type of adsorbents have been developed for a wide range of
separation. The physical properties of adsorbents are usually has a very porous
structure, with many fine pores. The adsorption usually occurs as a monolayer on the
surface of the fine pores, although several layers sometime occur. (Geankoplis, 2003)

Adsorptions are divided into physical adsorption and chemical adsorption.

Physical adsorption occurs in which the adsorbent adheres to the surface only with weak
intermolecular interaction. Chemical adsorption on the other hand, occurs as a molecule
adheres to a surface through the formation of the chemical bond.

2.5 Conclusion

Sugarcane bagasse residues of sugar industry are great alternative way as an air
filter because of the content of carbon. It can help to reduce the hazardous gas release in
the air and also an inexpensive material of producing air filter. Other than that, the
major by-product of agricultural residue can be reduced and the usage can be more
utilize in larger industrial scale.
 14

CHAPTER 3

METHODOLOGY

3.1 Introduction

In this chapter, the detail materials used and experimental procedure will be
explain. Started with where the raw material is collected, the preparation of the sample,
the method of research and finally the data collection method for the research.

3.2 Materials

The raw material used in this experiment is sugarcane bagasse with various
weights and size to be tested the absorptivity rate of the bagasse. The bagasse is
obtained from small sugarcane vendor near Gambang. The weight and size are varies in
order to compare the optimum condition of absorptivity of the bagasse. To test the
absorptivity of the bagasse towards oil, crude palm oil is used. Crude palm oil is one
type of heavy oil and important in the palm industry. The crude palm oil is obtained
from Kilang Sawit Bukit Sagu.
 15

3.3 Apparatus

3.3.1 Industrial Grinder

Figure 3.1 – Industrial grinder

Grinder is used to grind the sugarcane bagasse into smaller size. The size of the
sugarcane bagasse before grind is too big and the fiber is very long. It is very hard to
measure such condition of sugarcane bagasse.

3.3.2 Oven

Figure 3.2 – Oven

Oven is used to dry the raw bagasse. At the first place, the sugarcane bagasse is
wet due to the water content of the bagasse. To obtain dry bagasse, it needs to be dry in
 16

the oven for about few hours (if the temperature is high within 100ºC – 150ºC) or for a
day (if the temperature is within 60ºC - 80ºC).

3.3.3 Sieve shaker

Figure 3.3 – Laboratory sieve shaker

Sieve shaker is used to sieve the raw bagasse into different size. There is 2mm -
45µm of tray size of the sieve shaker. The raw bagasse is separated into the desired size
and be tested with the oil.

3.3.4 Electronic weight scale

Figure 3.4 – Analytical weight

 17

Electronic weight scale is used to weight the bagasse. Two different weight
needed in the research are 3g and 5g of bagasse. It is more accurate to used electronic
weight scale.

3.4 Experimental Procedures

3.4.1 Preparation of the sample

The fresh sugarcane bagasse is grind first using industrial grinder. Then the
bagasse is dried in an oven for one day at the temperature of 60ºC - 80ºC. For modified
bagasse, the dry bagasse have been treated with the chemical agents in order to activate
the surface functional groups, decrease cristalinity of cellulose, and reduce lignin. The
raw bagasse is treated with 1M sulphuric acid. The raw bagasse is soak in the 1M
sulphuric acid for 5 minutes. Then, the modified bagasse is washed with distilled water
and dried in the oven for a few hours with temperature 100ºC.

The bagasse is sieve using sieve shaker. The desired sizes are 2mm, 630µm and
160µm. For every size, different weight of bagasse need to prepared which are 3g and
5g. The bagasse is weigh using analytical weight scale for accurate reading. The reason
of using different weight for the bagasse sample is to observe the effect of weight
towards adsorption capacity. Even though the weight different is only 2g, but the
bagasse physically have a lot of different.

The bagasse then put in a dry cloth (the cloth must be weight first and the value
are recorded). The entire sample is put in 100ml of crude palm oil for 10minutes. The
reason of choosing crude palm oil as tested oil because crude palm oil is type of heavy
oil and previous research have already done with light oil like crude petroleum oil. The
volume for all tested sample are constant which is 100ml. the volume of 100ml is so
that the bagasse sample completely immerse in the oil for the test to avoid any error.
The error may occur if the bagasse is not completely immerse because there will be
some of the bagasse are not in contact with the oil.