Development of Adsorbent out of Waste from a Thermal Power Plant’s Water-Treatment Plant for Removal of Carbon Dioxide

Abstract

It is possible at present to reduce the emission of harmful substances into the environment during the operation of industrial enterprises by cleaning emissions and modernizing existing technological equipment. A survey of purification plants showed that sorption technologies are more accessible and simpler. Adsorption is an effective physical and chemical process for capturing carbon dioxide. The modern market offers a wide range of adsorbents that can be used to capture harmful substances, but, as a rule, for reasons of economic efficiency, it is more profitable to use secondary resources: production waste. At energy sector enterprises, various wastes are generated during the generation of thermal and electrical energy. Thus, when preparing a heat carrier at water-treatment plants, wastewater after clarifiers and ion exchange filters can be utilized to create a sorption material capable of capturing carbon dioxide, one of the main greenhouse gases. Obtaining adsorbents from waste from water-treatment plants will reduce the volume of sludge-storage facilities or eliminate their use altogether. Industrial waste is a secondary raw material and, as a rule, is inferior in its original form to traditional industrial adsorbents in terms of the activity indicator, which characterizes the ability to capture carbon dioxide. Therefore, to obtain high absorption capacity, waste is combined and activated. An adsorbent obtained from waste from water-treatment plants of thermal power plants is presented. The waste used was sludge water discharges and spent regeneration solutions after the softening filter. The component composition of the adsorbent and the method of its preparation by activation and preparation of waste are described. The efficiency of the developed adsorbent was tested on a laboratory setup. Comparative results of laboratory studies with the most frequently used adsorbents are presented. The results of determining the strength, porosity, permeability coefficient, and specific surface area of the studied adsorbents are presented.