Porous silica synthesis out of coal fly ash with no residue generation and complete silicon separation

doi:10.1007/s11783-023-1712-2

Front. Environ. Sci. Eng.

2023, Vol. 17

Issue (9) : 112 https://doi.org/10.1007/s11783-023-1712-2

RESEARCH ARTICLE

Porous silica synthesis out of coal fly ash with no residue generation and complete silicon separation

Tongyao Ju, Siyu Han, Fanzhi Meng, Li Lin, Jinglin Li, Kailun Chen, Jianguo Jiang(

)

School of Environment, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China

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Abstract

● Both amorphous and crystalline silicon are completely separated from coal fly ash.

● Porous silica is synthesized out of coal fly ash.

● No residues is produced during the whole synthesis process.

● The one-step method to synthesize silica don’t need long-time reaction and aging.

Ordered mesoporous silica materials exhibit enormous potential in industrial production. Since coal fly ash (CFA) is abundant in Si, it has become a green and promising way to utilize CFA by synthesizing porous silica materials. However, the stable crystalline structure of CFA limits the extraction of Si, and the residue is generated during the process of extracting Si. In this work, we proposed a no-residue method to synthesize ordered mesoporous silica out of CFA. Sodium carbonate (Na₂CO₃) was used to reconstruct the crystals of the CFA, and the calcined mixture then directly reacted with the precipitators. This method combined the process of Si extraction and porous material synthesis. In this method, no residue was generated and the silicon in both amorphous and crystalline phases of CFA was fully utilized. By this method, the extraction efficiency of Si was increased from 31.75% to nearly 100%. The as-synthesized mesoporous silica had a highly-ordered pore structure with a space group of la-3d, a surface area of 663.87 m²/g, a pore volume of 0.41 cm³/g, and an average pore diameter of 2.73 nm. The mechanism of crystalline transformation and material structure formation were systematically studied. This method provides a new idea to dispose of CFA and synthesize porous silica materials.

Keywords Coal fly ash Alkali fusion Micro-/meso-porous Si Zeolite MCM-48 Crystalline transformation

Corresponding Author(s): Jianguo Jiang

Issue Date: 18 April 2023

Cite this article:

Tongyao Ju,Siyu Han,Fanzhi Meng, et al. Porous silica synthesis out of coal fly ash with no residue generation and complete silicon separation[J]. Front. Environ. Sci. Eng., 2023, 17(9): 112.

URL:

https://academic.hep.com.cn/fese/EN/10.1007/s11783-023-1712-2
https://academic.hep.com.cn/fese/EN/Y2023/V17/I9/112

Fig.1 Flow chart of synthesizing mesoporous silica using coal fly ash.

Fig.2 Extraction efficiency of Si with different ratio of Na₂CO₃ to CFA under 700–900 °C.

Fig.3 Crystalline structure of the calcination products of Na₂CO₃ and CFA at 850 °C: (a) XRD patterns; (b) Quantitative analysis.

Fig.4 XRD patterns of calcination product residues filtered by water.

Fig.5 (a) N₂ physisorption isotherms and (b) pore size distributions of SiO₂ products with different dosages of CTAB.

Tab.1 Characterization of silica products

Fig.6 Structural characterization of SiO₂ products: (a) SAXRD patterns, (b) XRD patterns, (c) TEM images of CTAB-0.00, and (d) CTAB-0.24.

Fig.7 SEM images of “CTAB-0.00”, “CTAB-0.08”, “CTAB-0.16”, and “CTAB-0.24”.

Tab.2 Comparison of mesoporous material synthesis out of coal fly ash and other silicon-rich wastes

Fig.8 Mechanisms of self-control processes of one-step synthesis of silica products.

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[1]	Xingyue Chen, Peng Zhang, Yang Wang, Wei Peng, Zhifeng Ren, Yihong Li, Baoshuai Chu, Qiang Zhu. Research progress on synthesis of zeolites from coal fly ash and environmental applications[J]. Front. Environ. Sci. Eng., 2023, 17(12): 149-.
[2]	Yanqing YU, Xiaoliang LI, Xiaolan ZOU, Xiaobin ZHU. Effect of seawater salinity on the synthesis of zeolite from coal fly ash[J]. Front Envir Sci Eng, 2014, 8(1): 54-61.

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