Facile Zeolite Synthesis from Municipal Glass and Aluminum Solid Wastes

Abstract

A clean and cheap procedure for the synthesis of zeolites is presented, using glass and aluminum wastes as starting materials. The products are aluminosilicate materials with a high cation exchange capacity (CEC: 259-389.5meq/100g) containing 25-30% of crystalline zeolites. Since the synthesized materials are free of potentially toxic elements, they could be safely used for environmental and agricultural applications. More specifically, a material containing 30% of zeolite A has been synthesized at 60°C in one week, using NaOH as mineralizing agent. About 15% of zeolite A has been obtained at room temperature in six months. When KOH was employed, 25% of edingtonite has been produced in the final material after one week at 90°C. All the materials have been characterized for crystallinity, crystal morphology, particle size, pore size, surface area, and CEC. The whole process has been designed with the aim to recycle useful waste materials and reduce at minimum energy consumption and the production of harmful greenhouse gases

Zero-waste process for the transformation of a hazardous aluminum waste into a raw material to obtain zeolites

“…All processes to obtain zeolite A from different wastes required multiple steps, including the pretreatment of those wastes. (Terzano et al, 2015) This paper Not required 80 ºC, 12h pilot b) The reaction yield is very high because the waste is entirely transformed into a zeolitic material Thus, 3.2 kg of zeolite can be obtained per kg of aluminum waste. Because no other solids are formed, it can be considered that the aluminum waste has been completely transformed into a zeolite (yld = 100 %).…”

“…is used to form the zeolite framework, so that the transformation of aluminum waste is completed without generation of other solid waste (Sánchez-Hernández et al, 2016). Concerning other aluminum wastes, Terzano et al (Terzano et al, 2015) described the use of glass and aluminum cans from the Municipal Solid Waste System to obtain a zeolitic material with approximately 30 % of zeolite A, by a long thermal process (one week, 60 ºC) at laboratory-scale. Anuwattana et al (Anuwattana and Khummongkol, 2009) described the synthesis of Na-A zeolite from cupola slag and an aluminum sludge from an aluminum plating plant.…”

Hydrothermal synthesis of zeolites from green container glass

“…Recent initiatives to reutilize and upcycle waste container glass in the production of ceramics, geopolymers, building materials, ion-exchangers, sorbents and catalysts have been reported in the literature (Coleman et al, 2015;Silva et al, 2017;Bobirică et al, 2018;Elmes et al, 2018;Heriyanto et al, 2018;Ayala Valderrama et al, 2019;Giro-Paloma et al, 2019;Taylor et al, 2020). In particular, increasing attention has been given to the synthesis of zeolites from waste container glass as it potentially provides a consistent source of reactive silica, irrespective of color and origin (Espejel-Ayala et al, 2014;Terzano et al, 2015;Elmes et al, 2018;Lin et al, 2019;Majdinasab and Yuan, 2019a;Majdinasab and Yuan, 2019b;Collins et al, 2020;Taylor et al 2020). The amorphous silicate species in container glass are sufficiently reactive under mild hydrothermal conditions (typically 60 -200 °C in 1 -5 M alkaline hydroxide solution) to eliminate the need for pre-conditioning or activation by alkaline fusion (Terzano et al, 2015;Elmes et al, 2018).…”

“…In particular, increasing attention has been given to the synthesis of zeolites from waste container glass as it potentially provides a consistent source of reactive silica, irrespective of color and origin (Espejel-Ayala et al, 2014;Terzano et al, 2015;Elmes et al, 2018;Lin et al, 2019;Majdinasab and Yuan, 2019a;Majdinasab and Yuan, 2019b;Collins et al, 2020;Taylor et al 2020). The amorphous silicate species in container glass are sufficiently reactive under mild hydrothermal conditions (typically 60 -200 °C in 1 -5 M alkaline hydroxide solution) to eliminate the need for pre-conditioning or activation by alkaline fusion (Terzano et al, 2015;Elmes et al, 2018). The growing interest in container glass as a feedstock for zeolite production also arises from its low concentration of potentially hazardous components (e.g.…”

Single‐step process without organic template for the formation of zeolite A from RHA

“…Lee and Jo synthesized NaA zeolite from coal fly ash . Terzano et al utilized municipal glass and aluminium solid wastes for the preparation of NaA zeolite . Ti‐bearing electric arc furnace slag was used for the preparation of NaA zeolite .…”