Study on the Physicochemical Characteristics and Dust Suppression Performance of New Type Chemical Dust Suppressant for Copper Mine Pavement

Abstract

Mine road dust is an important source of dust in mine operations. The dust produced on the road surface is a great hazard to the workers. Aiming at the road dust of an open-pit mine, this paper conducts physical and chemical analysis of a dust suppressant prepared by using sodium polyacrylate as a binder, sodium carbonate as a moisture absorbent, polyethylene glycol as a water-retaining agent, and alkyl glycoside as a surfactant. Characterization of characteristics and dust suppression performance. The results show that the dust suppressant has a pH of 11.03, a viscosity of 18.5 mPa·s, and a surface tension of 28.1 mN/m. The content of heavy metal ions contained is less than the maximum concentration defined by the national standard. Under the same temperature condition, the greater the humidity, the stronger the hygroscopicity, especially when the humidity is 30%, where the better hygroscopic effect than water is obvious. The dust suppressant also has good anti-evaporation properties and it keeps at 4–5% moisture content after 10 days at a normal temperature. Compared with water, the dust suppressant has better resistance to wind erosion and compression. Under the same conditions, the loss rate of water is 2 times that of the dust suppressant and the pressure of the dust suppressant sample is about 3 times that of water. The dust suppressant has a much higher dust removal efficiency for all dust and respirable dust than water under the same conditions. Finally, the test results and mechanism of the dust suppression effect of the dust suppressant are described and analyzed, which shows that the dust suppressant studied in this paper has good performance and is suitable for road dust prevention.