Sustainable development of needle punched nonwoven fabrics from silk worm cocoon waste for oil spill removal

In this work, silkworm cocoon waste is used to make needle-punched nonwoven to study the oil sorption characteristics. The contact angles, oil sorption and retention capacity, sorption capacity after repeated use, and biodegradability of silk nonwoven are investigated. The oil sorption capacity of silk nonwoven fabrics against crude oil and vegetable oil are 31.52 g/g and 25.92 g/g respectively. The silk fibers are hydrophobic and oleophilic indicated by the contact angles. The study showed that silk nonwoven fabrics can be reused effectively at least five times before being disposed-off. The silk nonwoven biodegrades completely in soil in 100 days. The present work indicates that the silk nonwoven is a potential candidate for sustainable oil spill removal.