Establishing two-stage interaction between fly ash and NaOH by X-ray and infrared analyses

Abstract

The interaction of the fly ash and NaOH, in an open reflux hydrothermal system at 100°C, has been explored by several researchers and formation of fly ash zeolites has been confirmed based on the X-ray diffraction analysis of the residues. However, this method does not reveal much about the characteristic transitions (viz. elemental, electro-negativity and cation exchange capacity) of the residues. In this situation, resorting to Fourier transform-infrared radiation (FT-IR) spectroscopy on the residues obtained from two-stage hydrothermal treatment process, described in this manuscript, appears to be a novel idea to establish transitions in chemical bonds (viz., -Si-OH-Al-, OH-Na, OH-Al-), crystallinity and cation exchange capacity of these residues. Based on extensive studies, it has been demonstrated that FT-IR spectroscopy is extremely useful for 1) detection of chemical bonds in the residues, 2) evaluation of zeolites in the residues and 3) also establishing the superiority of the two-stage interaction of the fly ash with NaOH for synthesizing better fly ash zeolites (viz., Na-P1 and Hydroxysodalte) as compared to those obtained from the conventional single-stage treatment of the fly ash.

Keywords

hydrothermal treatment / alkali activation / fly ash zeolites / X-ray diffraction (XRD) and Fourier transform-infrared radiation (FT-IR) spectroscopy

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Acknowledgements

Authors would like to thank the Sophisticated Analytical Instrument Facility (SAIF) centre and Material Science and Metallurgical Engineering department of IIT Bombay, for extending help and support during the entire course of this study.

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2014 Higher Education Press and Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg