Acetylene is an important chemical raw material produced
by the
reaction of CaC2 and water. During the synthesis reaction
process of calcium carbide, the coke formed from the highly alkaline
coal and limestone results in a large amount of ash, which not only
increases energy consumption but also significantly affects the purity
of CaC2. In order to explore the effect of ash on CaC2, first, CaC2 was synthesized by a high-temperature
solid-state reaction, and its purity was identified. XRD results indicate
that the main phase of this crystal is CaC2 with a space
group of I4/mmm. To further investigate
the adsorption properties of inorganic minerals on CaC2 surfaces, the adsorption of the alkali metals Na and K from the
ash to the CaC2 surface was calculated by Density Functional
Theory (DFT) calculations. The surface energy calculation results
demonstrate that CaC2 has the lowest energy and most stable
crystal faces, which are in good agreement with the experimental results.
Among them, on the crystalline face (110), the most stable configuration
for Na is the Ca–C bridge site, while the most stable configuration
for K is the Ca–Ca bridge site. The atomic population and charge
density difference values show that the charge transfer of K on the
CaC2 surface is significantly larger than that of Na. PDOS
analysis demonstrates a deep hybridization of K, which inferred that
K is more easily combined with calcium carbide than Na.