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The combustion of peat fuel for industrial scale power generation and domestic heating produces toxic ash, most of which is presently buried in landfill. In this study, the mineralogy of waste peat ash was determined, followed by its successful use as a starting reagent to prepare zeolites. X-ray diffraction (XRD) confirmed the presence of quartz, anhydrite, calcite, lime, merwinite and magnetite in peat ash, and that a single extraction step using mineral acid was sufficient to remove all non-quartz crystal phases. Alkali fusion of the acid-extracted samples produced GIS-type zeolite. LTA-and FAU-type were also prepared by altering the Si/Al ratio and extending the ageing time. Experiments confirmed that the LTA-and FAU-type zeolites were active in the simultaneous adsorption of lead, cadmium, cobalt, zinc and copper from aqueous solutions, with similar quantities of metals removed to those using a reference zeolite.

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