Preparation and Properties of Adsorbent Made from Australian Brown Coal Treated with Aqueous Sodium Hydroxide Solution

Abstract

An adsorbent was prepared from Australian brown coal (8-16 mesh) by treating 100 g of the coal with 10 g of NaOH in 60 ml water at room temperature for 90 minutes. It was necessary to impregnate the NaOH treated coal with 10 mg/g of CA²⁺ for preventing the elution of humic acid.
Since the NaOH treated coal from Australian brown coal was easily degradated into the fine particles during the manufacturing processes, it was pelleted by using commercial vinyl acetate emulsion as a binder agent. In the drying process, the moisture of the sample was adjusted closely to 45% and the particle size was sieved in the range of 8-16 mesh. The compressive strength of each particle was 800-1200 g.
The measurement of adsorbability of the pelleted samle for dyes and metal ions was carried out in aqueous solutions. The values of ion exchange capacity expressed in meq/g were 1.38, 1.25, 1.24, 1.21, 1.15, and 0, 96 for Pb²⁺, Zn²⁺, Cu²⁺, Ni²⁺, Cd²⁺ and Methylene Blue, respectively. On the other hand, adsorption was hardly observed with a dye anion, CI. acid blue 62. Discussion is given on these results.