Removal of Non-Aqueous-Phase Liquid (NAPL) Pollutants from Seawater Using Human Hair as a Sustainable Biosorbent

Removal of Non-Aqueous-Phase Liquid (NAPL) Pollutants from Seawater Using Human Hair as a Sustainable Biosorbent | Research Square window.SnipcartSettings = { analytics: { enabled: false } }; (function() { var accessVector = localStorage.getItem('access_vector') || ''; window.dataLayer = window.dataLayer || []; if (accessVector) { window.dataLayer.push({ user: { profile: { profileInfo: { snid: accessVector } } } }); } })(); (function(w,d,s,l,i){w[l]=w[l]||[];w[l].push({'gtm.start':new Date().getTime(),event:'gtm.js'});var f=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],j=d.createElement(s),dl=l!='dataLayer'?'&l='+l:'';j.async=true;j.src='https://www.googletagmanager.com/gtm.js?id='+i+dl;f.parentNode.insertBefore(j,f);})(window,document,'script','dataLayer','GTM-K279D39R'); Browse Preprints In Review Journals COVID-19 Preprints AJE Video Bytes Research Tools Research Promotion AJE Professional Editing AJE Rubriq About Preprint Platform In Review Editorial Policies Our Team Advisory Board Help Center Sign In Submit a Preprint Cite Share Download PDF Article Removal of Non-Aqueous-Phase Liquid (NAPL) Pollutants from Seawater Using Human Hair as a Sustainable Biosorbent Ahmad M. Fathy, Mohamed A. Ayad, Tarek M. Aboul-Fotouh, Khaled A. Fattah This is a preprint; it has not been peer reviewed by a journal. https://doi.org/ 10.21203/rs.3.rs-8355145/v1 This work is licensed under a CC BY 4.0 License Status: Posted Version 1 posted You are reading this latest preprint version Abstract Oil spills are regarded as one of the worst disasters to ever affect the marine environment, therefore, cleanup is required. Human hair has been reported as petroleum sorbent and attempts have been made to evaluate its potential for higher added applications. This paper investigates the use of waste human hair as a low-cost, organic sorbent for oil spill cleanup, aiming to replace synthetic adsorbents.. Using motor oil and diesel as the sorbate, human hair was employed as a biosorbent material, and its property was examined. Using 1 g of hair for 20 ml of oil showed that intact hair had higher and faster-stabilizing sorption efficiency than fiber hair for both lubricating oil and diesel. As human hair effectively sorbed lubricating oil and diesel quickly, reaching near-maximum efficiency upon contact, using 1 g of hair with immediate removal was preferable for saving time and reducing environmental exposure to spilled oil. For 20 ml of oil in a 250 ml glass beaker, The sorption efficiency of both intact and fiber hair increased with higher weights, reaching 95% and 85% for lubricating oil and 80% and 40% for diesel at 1.5 grams, respectively. As oil volume increased, the sorption efficiency of intact hair for lubricating oil dropped from 95% at 20 ml to 65% at 80 ml, while fiber hair showed a smaller decline from 85% to 77.61%; for diesel, intact hair decreased from 45% to 11.25%, and fiber hair from 25% to 16.65%.Fiber hair, with its intact structure, proved more efficient for oil absorption than powdered hair, requiring less material to form sludge. Physical sciences/Chemistry Physical sciences/Engineering Earth and environmental sciences/Environmental sciences Physical sciences/Materials science Human hair Oil Spill Sludge formation Sorption Full Text Additional Declarations No competing interests reported. Cite Share Download PDF Status: Posted Version 1 posted You are reading this latest preprint version Research Square lets you share your work early, gain feedback from the community, and start making changes to your manuscript prior to peer review in a journal. As a division of Research Square Company, we’re committed to making research communication faster, fairer, and more useful. We do this by developing innovative software and high quality services for the global research community. Our growing team is made up of researchers and industry professionals working together to solve the most critical problems facing scientific publishing. Also discoverable on Platform About Our Team In Review Editorial Policies Advisory Board Help Center Resources Author Services Accessibility API Access RSS feed Manage Cookie Preferences © Research Square 2026 | ISSN 2693-5015 (online) Privacy Policy Terms of Service Do Not Sell My Personal Information {"props":{"pageProps":{"initialData":{"identity":"rs-8355145","acceptedTermsAndConditions":true,"allowDirectSubmit":true,"archivedVersions":[],"articleType":"Article","associatedPublications":[],"authors":[{"id":566165558,"identity":"a60a5fdb-1fc3-45b3-9dac-efd3a20eae0d","order_by":0,"name":"Ahmad M. 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Biosorbent","fulltext":[],"fulltextSource":"","fullText":"","funders":[],"hasAdminPriorityOnWorkflow":false,"hasManuscriptDocX":false,"hasOptedInToPreprint":true,"hasPassedJournalQc":"","hasAnyPriority":false,"hideJournal":true,"highlight":"","institution":"","isAcceptedByJournal":false,"isAuthorSuppliedPdf":true,"isDeskRejected":"","isHiddenFromSearch":false,"isInQc":false,"isInWorkflow":false,"isPdf":true,"isPdfUpToDate":true,"isWithdrawnOrRetracted":false,"journal":{"display":true,"email":"[email protected]","identity":"researchsquare","isNatureJournal":false,"hasQc":true,"allowDirectSubmit":true,"externalIdentity":"","sideBox":"","snPcode":"","submissionUrl":"/submission","title":"Research Square","twitterHandle":"researchsquare","acdcEnabled":true,"dfaEnabled":false,"editorialSystem":"","reportingPortfolio":"","inReviewEnabled":false,"inReviewRevisionsEnabled":true},"keywords":"Human hair, Oil Spill, Sludge formation, Sorption","lastPublishedDoi":"10.21203/rs.3.rs-8355145/v1","lastPublishedDoiUrl":"https://doi.org/10.21203/rs.3.rs-8355145/v1","license":{"name":"CC BY 4.0","url":"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/"},"manuscriptAbstract":"\u003cp\u003eOil spills are regarded as one of the worst disasters to ever affect the marine environment, therefore, cleanup is required. Human hair has been reported as petroleum sorbent and attempts have been made to evaluate its potential for higher added applications. This paper investigates the use of waste human hair as a low-cost, organic sorbent for oil spill cleanup, aiming to replace synthetic adsorbents.. Using motor oil and diesel as the sorbate, human hair was employed as a biosorbent material, and its property was examined. Using 1 g of hair for 20 ml of oil showed that intact hair had higher and faster-stabilizing sorption efficiency than fiber hair for both lubricating oil and diesel. As human hair effectively sorbed lubricating oil and diesel quickly, reaching near-maximum efficiency upon contact, using 1 g of hair with immediate removal was preferable for saving time and reducing environmental exposure to spilled oil. For 20 ml of oil in a 250 ml glass beaker, The sorption efficiency of both intact and fiber hair increased with higher weights, reaching 95% and 85% for lubricating oil and 80% and 40% for diesel at 1.5 grams, respectively. As oil volume increased, the sorption efficiency of intact hair for lubricating oil dropped from 95% at 20 ml to 65% at 80 ml, while fiber hair showed a smaller decline from 85% to 77.61%; for diesel, intact hair decreased from 45% to 11.25%, and fiber hair from 25% to 16.65%.Fiber hair, with its intact structure, proved more efficient for oil absorption than powdered hair, requiring less material to form sludge.\u003c/p\u003e","manuscriptTitle":"Removal of Non-Aqueous-Phase Liquid (NAPL) Pollutants from Seawater Using Human Hair as a Sustainable Biosorbent","msid":"","msnumber":"","nonDraftVersions":[{"code":1,"date":"2025-12-29 06:56:16","doi":"10.21203/rs.3.rs-8355145/v1","editorialEvents":[{"type":"communityComments","content":0}],"status":"published","journal":{"display":true,"email":"[email protected]","identity":"researchsquare","isNatureJournal":false,"hasQc":true,"allowDirectSubmit":true,"externalIdentity":"","sideBox":"","snPcode":"","submissionUrl":"/submission","title":"Research Square","twitterHandle":"researchsquare","acdcEnabled":true,"dfaEnabled":false,"editorialSystem":"","reportingPortfolio":"","inReviewEnabled":false,"inReviewRevisionsEnabled":true}}],"origin":"","ownerIdentity":"8700560b-451b-4f59-a607-f8dc57d8d469","owner":[],"postedDate":"December 29th, 2025","published":true,"recentEditorialEvents":[],"rejectedJournal":[],"revision":"","amendment":"","status":"posted","subjectAreas":[{"id":60271899,"name":"Physical sciences/Chemistry"},{"id":60271900,"name":"Physical sciences/Engineering"},{"id":60271901,"name":"Earth and environmental sciences/Environmental sciences"},{"id":60271902,"name":"Physical sciences/Materials science"}],"tags":[],"updatedAt":"2026-02-04T11:26:19+00:00","versionOfRecord":[],"versionCreatedAt":"2025-12-29 06:56:16","video":"","vorDoi":"","vorDoiUrl":"","workflowStages":[]},"version":"v1","identity":"rs-8355145","journalConfig":"researchsquare"},"__N_SSP":true},"page":"/article/[identity]/[[...version]]","query":{"redirect":"/article/rs-8355145","identity":"rs-8355145","version":["v1"]},"buildId":"XKTyCvWXoU3ODBz1xrDgd","isFallback":false,"isExperimentalCompile":false,"dynamicIds":[84888],"gssp":true,"scriptLoader":[]}