Coal combustion in power generation not only generates energy, but also a large number of by-products, for instance, coal fly ash. In refer to coal fly ash, utilization of coal fly ash is a key to reduce significant amount of coal fly ash. Zeolite is a crystalline material, which is composed of aluminosilicates with three-dimensional network of silicon and aluminium tetrahedral linked with oxygen atoms and has numerous applications including catalyst and adsorbent. In this research, coal fly ash is used to synthesize zeolite A by alkaline fusion followed by hydrothermal method.
The methods consist of pretreatment of coal fly ash and zeolite synthesis. In pretreatment step, the fly ash was roasted. Furthermore, it was mixed with HCl solution. The mixture was heated, then the fly ash was filtered off, washed repeatedly with distilled water, and dried. For the main process, zeolite synthesis consists of fusion, aging, and hydrothermal. In fusion process, the pretreated ash was mixed with sodium hydroxide. The mixture was transferred into crucible nickel and left to fuse. The sintered granules of the fused ash were cooled down, ground, while sodium aluminate was added. The mixture was shaken in a incubator shaker for aging process and subsequently heated for hydrothermal process. After hydrothermal step was complete, the formed suspension was filtered and zeolite was washed repeatedly until reached the specified pH. The last, the zeolite was dried.
Figure 1. The synthesized zeolite
Contact Person:
Winny Wulandari, Ph.D. (winny@che.itb.ac.id)
