Research on coal dust pollution prevention and control based on co-solvent association: Macro-micro experiments and molecular dynamics simulations

Abstract

In order to better solve the environmental pollution caused by coal dust flying. In this paper, the improvement of wetting and hydrophilicity of coal dust by the binary association solution of surfactant and chelating agent tetrasodium iminodisuccinate (IDS) was studied from the perspective of experiment at the Microcosm–macrocosm analogy levels. To further explore the synergistic mechanism between chelating agents and surfactants, a coal surfactant/chelating agent water three-phase system was constructed using molecular dynamics simulation, and the motion trends of each molecule in different solution systems were analyzed in depth. The combined analysis revealed that sodium dodecylbenzenesulfonate had the best wetting performance when associated with IDS. It increases the surface pores and specific surface area of coal, and the surfactant is more widely adsorbed on the surface of coal dust. The proportion of oxygen-containing hydrophilic groups in coal dust increases, achieving improvement in wetting and hydrophilicity. Overcoming the problem of difficult wetting of coal dust has important practical significance for spray dust reduction and prevention of coal dust pollution.