Abstract

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Atili (blackdate) oil was bleached in this research using three different adsorbents; acidic fuller’s earth, activated carbon, and the mixture of fuller’s earth and activated carbon. The adsorbents were compared to give the most suitable of the three. The bleaching process was carried out by agitation of varying amounts of the different adsorbents at 80oC and a contact time of 45mins. The bleaching data were fitted to Langmuir and Freundlich isotherms; bleaching with fuller’s earth gave good fits to both. Fuller’s earth was observed to be most suitable for bleaching of Atili (blackdate) oil, giving a colour removal of 88.25%, which was followed by activated carbon with a colour removal of 85.95% and lastly the mixture, with colour removal of 85.34% all with 2g of adsorbent. Finally, photometric colour was determined as the average absorbance between 420 and 800 nm

Keywords: Atili, oil, bleaching, adsorbent, white