Oil removal from oily water systems using immobilized flaxseed gum gel beads

Experiments were conducted to evaluate the efficiency of immobilized flaxseed gum gel beads for oil removal from oily wastewater. The adsorption capacities achieved the highest level 0.55 g g−1 (oil/beads) under the following conditions: flaxseed gum content in beads 30 mg g−1, 20 °C, particle diameter of beads 2.0 mm and pH 7.5. Static adsorption kinetics showed that a pseudo-first-order rate equation described the experimental data most accurately (R2 ≥ 0.9112). Principal component analysis (PCA) showed that there are two main aspects influencing the adsorption capacities and describing 99.1% of the total variances. The results showed that immobilized flaxseed gum beads have better adsorption capacities than active carbon. This study provides valuable data for a new environmentally-friendly material for the oil removal from wastewater.