Water quality and waste management are two chief problems that the modern world is struggling with. Intensified development of the industry not only leads to the production of large amounts of solid waste that must be stored in landfills but can also result in contaminant emissions into the environment. Enormous quantities of ash produced from coal combustion have been a long-term problem of the industry. Literature studies show that fly ash can be used as a material to produce cheap and efficient zeolite-type adsorbents due to abundance of alumina-silicates in their composition. Fly ashes which were processed into zeolites as a result of alkaline hydrothermal treatment were obtained from two power plants in Poland (in Turów and Zgierz). The obtained zeolite materials and raw fly ash samples were characterised in terms of specific surface area, particle size distribution and density. The structure was also investigated using Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) in the midinfrared wavenumber range. Two raw fly ashes and two zeolite materials were examined for their ability to remove Cu(II) ions from aqueous solutions. The results showed that the amount of adsorbed copper ions by alkaline-modified fly ash was higher than for unmodified fly ash. The ion removal efficiency is high and exceeds 95%.

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