Chemical additive based on sodium oleate and linseed oil for preparation coal dust suppression composition

Abstract

The mining, transportation, and processing of coal involve the formation and emission of significant amounts of particulate matter, which includes coal dust. The most commonly employed method for controlling coal dust in an air is water spray dust suppression (hydrodedusting). This method is founded on water’s capacity to moisten dust particles and bond them to both each other and the surfaces where the dust settles. One notable limitation of this method is the coal’s hydrophobic nature, which hinders water from wetting coal dust particles. In order to overcome this, surfactants are introduced into the water to increase the wettability of the hydrophobic coal particle surface. In this paper, we proposed a dust suppressant composition consisting of oleic acid, sodium hydroxide, and linseed oil in water. We examine its properties and evaluated its ability to enhance the wettability of coal dust. We have identified the most effective concentration, resulting in a working solution that improves the wettability of coal dust by 87 % compared to water, surpassing the wettability of most known reagents. The proposed composition contains 140 mg/L oleic acid, 100 mg/L sodium hydroxide, and 70 mg/L linseed oil in water. The simplicity of this composition, its minimal impact on the environment and human health, and its negligible influence on the further use of coal raw materials make this wetting agent composition highly promising for application in coal industry technologies of water spray dust suppression.