Evaluación de la capacidad adsorbente de hidrocarburos de fibras sintetizadas con queratina extraida de plumas

Abstract

One of the problems related to the hydrocarbon industry is hydrocarbon spills; all the strategies designed for its containment and extraction use sorbents, which are limited in their use by various factors, synthetic ones being the ones that present the best performance. This research aimed to evaluate the sorbent capacity of fibres synthesized from the keratin extracted from feathers. The methodology implemented in this work was exploratory and descriptive, analyzing the relationship between the type of dicarboxylic acid applied, the temperature in the formation of synthetic fibres and the type of particle used and its adsorbent capacity. An experimental design was used, in whose analysis units the fibres formed from keratin and their hydrocarbon adsorbent capacity were used as response variables. Applying this methodology, it was determined that the synthesis of keratin fibres has a maximum yield of 22.7% using 10% (w/v) adipic acid; a mass without consistency was formed when using oxalic acid. After the buoyancy test, the type II particles had 84% buoyancy, and the type III particles had no notability. The adsorbent capacity of the synthetic fibres was 0.94 times their weight for Type II particles and 9.35 times their weight for Type III particles. It is concluded that the synthetic keratin fibres have a low absorbance performance compared to other sorbents; they cannot be applied in water since more than 10% settled, and the best synthesis condition occurred with adipic acid.