RESEARCH ARTICLE

Leaching of aluminum from coal spoil by mechanothermal activation

  • Xiaoxue SUN ,
  • Yuzhu SUN ,
  • Jianguo YU
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  • State Key Laboratory of Chemical Engineering, East China University of Science and Technology, Shanghai 200237, China

Received date: 11 Mar 2015

Accepted date: 15 May 2015

Published date: 14 Jul 2015

Copyright

2014 Higher Education Press and Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg

Abstract

The process of activating coal spoil (CS) in order to recover aluminum as a high value product was investigated. The CS was first characterized by X-ray fluorescence (XRF), X-ray diffraction (XRD) and thermogravimetric analysis-differential scanning calorimetry (TGA-DSC) in order to determine the chemical and mineral compositions of the CS. Then a mechanothermal activation method was adopted to increase the aluminum activity in the coal spoil. Over 95% of the aluminum in the CS could be extracted using this activation method. The mechanothermal activation process promoted the destruction of kaolinite structures and hindered the formation of amorphous γ-Al2O3. This resulted in a high aluminum leaching activity in the mechanothermally activated CS.

Cite this article

Xiaoxue SUN , Yuzhu SUN , Jianguo YU . Leaching of aluminum from coal spoil by mechanothermal activation[J]. Frontiers of Chemical Science and Engineering, 2015 , 9(2) : 216 -223 . DOI: 10.1007/s11705-015-1518-2

Acknowledgements

This work was financially supported by the National High Technology Research and Development Program of China (Grant No. 2011AA06A102), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 21306053), the Key Project of Scientific Research Innovation of Shanghai Municipal Education Commission (Grant No. 14ZZ063), and the Fundamental Research Fund for the Central Universities (WB1213008).
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