Oil pollution results in detrimental effects on the environment

living organisms and economy. Currently

a lot of attempt is devoted to provide an efficient

easy and cheap method for cleaning-up oil pollution. To improve the efficiency cleaning-up emulsified oil in wastewater

lauric acid was employed to modify corn cob and peanut shell

and these materials were characterized by scanning electron microscope (SEM)

Brunauer-Emmett-Teller (BET) method and Fourier transform infrared spectrometer (FTIR). The results indicate that the modification of lauric acid is taken place by the esterification reaction between carboxyl in lauric acid and hydroxyl in cellulose

hemicellulose and lignin of biologic materials

and ester group formed is connected to alkyl chain

not only increasing the oleophylic and decreasing hydrophobic property of absorbents

but also creating micro-porosity. So

it can be expected that if the modified materials are employed for removal of emulsified oil

the oil adsorption capacity can be enhanced

because of the combined action of alkyl chain and micro-pore. In order to measure the removal efficiency of emulsified oil

in the present study

petroleum ether is used to extract oil from water sample

and ultraviolet spectroscopy employs for measuring oil concentration. The results show that the oil adsorption capacity is 6.86 mg·g-1 and 5.21 mg·g-1 for raw corn cob and peanut shell

and goes up 10.79 mg·g-1 and 7.44 mg·g-1 for the modified samples by lauric acid

respectively. Therefore

when biologic materials modified by lauric acid are applied to treat emulsified oily water

not only removal efficiency is high

but also the waste is controled by another waste. It is a very environmental protection measure.