Han GS  Kim DS  Lee DK

Vol. 26,  No. 3, pp. 177-185, Sep.  2020
10.7464/ksct.2020.26.3.177

Fly ash clean flotation process hydro-cyclone Soybean oil

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All coal ash, generated from coal-fired power plants, is entirely dumped onto a landfill site. As coal ash contains 80% fly ash, a clean floating process was developed in this study to recover useful components from coal ash and to use them as high value-added industrial materials. When the unburned carbon (UC) was recovered from the fly ash, soybean oil, an eco-friendly vegetable oil, was used as collector instead of a non-ionic kerosene collector to prevent the occurrence of odor from the kerosene. After the UC was separated by flotation, particulate ceramic microsphere (CM) was recovered, without generating acidic wastewater, through hydro-cyclone instead of sulfuric acid solution in order to separate ceramic microsphere (CM) and cleaned ash (CA) from the residue. By utilizing soybean oil as a collector, the recovery rate of UC turned high at 85.8% due to the increased adsorption of UC, the high viscosity of soybean oil, and the increase in floating properties caused by the linoleic acid contained in soybean oil. All of the combustible components contained in the recovered UC were carbon components, with the carbon content registering high when soybean oil was used. The recovered UC had many pores with a rough surface; thus, it could be easily ground and then used as an industrial material for its fine particles. The CM and CA recovered by the clean separation process using hydro-cyclone had a spherical shape, and the particles were clearly separated without clumping together. The average diameter (D50) of the particles was 5 μm, so it was possible to realize the atomization of CM through a process change.