The oil spill has severely caused environmental damage to ocean water resources resulting in significant negative influence on the ecosystem and putting the life of human at high risk. Hence, the development of efficient and low-cost adsorbents is an instrumental and essential task to purify oil-contaminated water. | Vietnam Journal of Science and Technology 56 (1A) (2018) 152-158 MAGNETIC ADSORBENTS BASED ON THE COMPOSITE OF EXPANDED GRAPHITE AND NiFe2O4 FOR REMOVAL OF HEAVY OILS Pham Van Thinh1, 2, 3, Hoang Ngoc Bich1, Bui Thi Phuong Quynh4, Nguyen Duy Trinh1, Long Giang Bach1, Nguyen Thi Thuong1, * 1 NTT Institute of High Technology, Nguyen Tat Thanh University, No 300A Nguyen Tat Thanh, District 4, Ho Chi Minh City 2 Graduate University of Science and Technology, Vietnam Academy of Science and Technology, No 18 Hoang Quoc Viet, Cay Giay, Ha Noi Faculty of Food – Environment – Nursing, Dong Nai Technology University, Bien Hoa City, Dong Nai Province 3 4 Faculty of Chemical Technology, Ho Chi Minh City University of Food Industry, 140 Le Trong Tan, Tay Thanh, Tan Phu, Ho Chi Minh City * Email: nthithuong@ Received: 15 August 2017; Accepted for publication: 25 February 2018 ABSTRACT The oil spill has severely caused environmental damage to ocean water resources resulting in significant negative influence on the ecosystem and putting the life of human at high risk. Hence, the development of efficient and low-cost adsorbents is an instrumental and essential task to purify oil-contaminated water. The corporation of magnetic particles into the adsorbents has recently considered as an innovative approach which facilitate phase separation under a magnetic field thus allowing easy and efficient recovery of the used adsorbents from polluted water in large scale. In this study, the expanded graphite (EG) and magnetic NiFe 2O4 based composite prepared from available graphite source of Vietnam has been found as a potential adsorbent to remove crude oil (CO) and diesel oil (DO). The EG/NiFe2O4 was fabricated via a facile two-step process: (1) the expansion of graphite and (2) the decoration of magnetic NiFe2O4 on EG. The physical properties of as-obtained EG/NiFe2O4 were characterized by using Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM), Fourier-Transform Infrared Spectroscopy .
