Potential application of recycled rubber in oil pollution control

The abundance and indiscriminate disposal of scrap tyres inurban areas in Nigeria create serious health and environmentalproblems. The potential of using rubber recycled from scraptyres as an absorbent in crude oil clean up was investigated.Rubber particles of mesh sizes within the range of 0.15 to2.36 mm were used to absorb crude oil at different temperatures(5 to 40 °C). The rapid increase in oil absorption withinthe first 20 min was followed by a much slower rate, with theequilibrium absorption being attained after 30 min. Theequilibrium absorption increased with decreasing particle sizeand decreasing temperature of absorption. At 30 °C, the oil absorption for the 0.15 mm rubber particles was more than twice that of the 2.36 mm particle size. When regenerated recycledrubber was used, the equilibrium absorption decreased by about15–40%. The extent of reduction was higher for the largerparticles and at lower temperature of absorption.