Alkali Activation of Metakaolin and Wollastonite: Reducing Sodium Hydroxide Use and Enhancing Gel Formation through Carbonation

Alkali activated materials (AAMs) offer significant advantages over traditional materials like Portland cement, but require the use of strong alkaline solutions, which can have negative environmental impacts. This study investigates the synthesis of AAMs using metakaolin and wollastonite, aiming to reduce environmental impact by eliminating sodium silicate and using only sodium hydroxide as an activator. The hypothesis is that wollastonite can provide the necessary silicon for the reaction, with calcium from wollastonite potentially balancing the negative charges usually countered by sodium in the alkaline solution. This study compares raw and carbonated wollastonite (AAM-W and AAM-CW) systems, with raw materials carefully characterized and binding networks analyzed using TGA, FT-IR, and XRD. The results show that while wollastonite can reduce the amount of sodium hydroxide needed, this reduction cannot exceed 50%, as higher substitution levels lead to an insufficiently alkaline environment for the reactions. The carbonation of wollastonite enhances the availability of silicon and calcium, promoting the formation of both N-A-S-H and C-A-S-H gels.

Synthesis of magnesium carbonate hydrate from natural talc

Various morphologies of magnesium carbonate hydrate had been synthesized without using any organic additives by carefully adjusting the reaction temperature and time during the talc carbonation process. At lower temperatures, magnesium carbonate hydrate was prone to display needle-like morphology. With the further increase of the carbonation temperature, the sheet-like crystallites became the preferred morphology, and at higher aging temperatures, these crystallites tended to assemble into layer-like structures with diverse morphologies, such as rose-like particles and nest-like structure. The reaction time had no effect on the crystal morphology, but it affected the particle size and situation of the crystal growth. X-Ray diffraction results showed that these various morphologies were closely related to their crystal structure and compositions. The needle-like magnesium carbonate hydrate had a formula of MgCO3·3H2O, whereas with the morphological transformation from needle-like to sheet-like, rose-like, and nest-like structure, their corresponding compositions also changed from MgCO3·3H2O to 4MgCO3·Mg(OH)2·8H2O, 4MgCO3·Mg(OH)2·5H2O, and 4MgCO3·Mg(OH)2·4H2O.

Synthesis and characterization of calcium carbonate whisker from yellow phosphorus slag

In this study, a procedure for producing calcium carbonate whisker through yellow phosphorus slag carbonation without adding any crystal control agents was proposed. The influence of process parameters on the crystal phase and morphology of the product was discussed. The content of aragonite in the product was more than 90% under optimal conditions. The whiteness of the product was 97.6%. The diameter of a single particle was about 1.5–3 μm, and the length of a single particle was about 8–40 μm. Various polymorphs and morphologies of CaCO3 could be formed by adjusting the production conditions. The by-products produced during the whole preparation process could also be reused. The whole preparation process of fibrous aragonite from yellow phosphorus slag without using any chemical additives was also proposed. These indicated that the production strategy had a good application prospect.

The Indirect Mineral Carbonation of Electric Arc Furnace Slag Under Microwave Irradiation

The indirect mineral carbonation of industrial residues is one of the potential technologies for CO₂ sequestration. In this paper, the leaching and carbonation of electric arc furnace (EAF) slag under microwave irradiation was investigated. The experimental results show that the main reactive calcium-containing phase in the EAF slag carbonation process is calcium silicate, and the final leaching ratio of larger particles is lower than that of smaller particles due to the silica layer produced on the surface of the calcium silicate. The Drozdov equation with a self-impeding coefficient can describe EAF slag leaching kinetics under microwave irradiation. The explosive homogeneous nucleation phenomenon under microwave irradiation contributes to the thinning and narrowing of crystals. Microwave irradiation can inhibit the crystaltype transformation of vaterite.

Pd Nanoparticles and MOFs Synergistically Hybridized Halloysite Nanotubes for Hydrogen Storage

Natural halloysite nanotubes (HNTs) were hybridized with metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) to prepare novel composites. MOFs were transformed into carbon by carbonization calcination, and palladium (Pd) nanoparticles were introduced to build an emerging ternary compound system for hydrogen adsorption. The hydrogen adsorption capacities of HNT-MOF composites were 0.23 and 0.24 wt%, while those of carbonized products were 0.24 and 0.27 wt% at 25 °C and 2.65 MPa, respectively. Al-based samples showed higher hydrogen adsorption capacities than Zn-based samples on account of different selectivity between metal and hydrogen and approximate porous characteristics. More pore structures are generated by the carbonization reaction from metal-organic frameworks into carbon; high specific surface area, uniform pore size, and large pore volume benefited the hydrogen adsorption ability of composites. Moreover, it was also possible to promote hydrogen adsorption capacity by incorporating Pd. The hydrogen adsorption capacity of ternary compound, Pd-C-H3-MOFs(Al), reached 0.32 wt% at 25 °C and 2.65 MPa. Dissociation was assumed to take place on the Pd particles, then atomic and molecule hydrogen spilled over to the structure of carboxylated HNTs, MOFs, and the carbon products for enhancing the hydrogen adsorption capacity.

Tin Oxide-Carbon-Coated Sepiolite Nanofibers with Enhanced Lithium-Ion Storage Property

Natural sepiolite (Sep) nanofibers were coated with carbon and nanoscale SnO2 to prepare an emerging nanocomposite (SnO2-C@Sep), which exhibited enhanced electrochemical performance. Sepiolite could act as a steady skeleton, carbon coating principally led sepiolite from an isolated to an electric state, and decoration of nanoscale SnO2 was beneficial to the functionization of sepiolite. Cycling performances indicated that SnO2-C@Sep showed higher discharge capacities than commercial SnO2 after 50 cycles. The nanocomposite SnO2-C@Sep possessed enhanced lithium storage properties with stable capacity retention and low cost, which could open up a new strategy to synthesize a variety of functional hybrid materials based on the cheap and abundant clay and commercialization of lithium-metal oxide batteries.

Sb2Se3 assembling Sb2O3@ attapulgite as an emerging composites for catalytic hydrogenation of p-nitrophenol

The construction and application of a new type of composite material are achieved more and more attention. However, expected Sb2Se3/attapulgite composites aim to use the low price, and high adsorption of attapulgite in assembling Sb2Se3 is quite difficult to be acquired by a facile and benign environmental hydrothermal method. In this manuscript, we developed a new way for preparation of an emerging composite by means of Sb2O3 as a media linking Sb2Se3 and attapulgite together, and finally won an emerging composite Sb2Se3/Sb2O3@attapulgite, which presented an excellent catalytic properties for catalytic hydrogenation of p-nitrophenol. It was noted that the Sb2Se3/Sb2O3@attapulgite composites exhibited a high conversion rate for the hydrogenation of p-nitrophenol that was up to 90.7% within 15 min, which was far more than the 61.5% of Sb2Se3 sample. The excellent catalytic performance was attributed to the highly dispersion Sb2Se3 microbelts and Sb2Se3@Sb2O3@attapulgite rods, which would improve the adsorption of the reactant species and facility electronic transfer process of the catalytic hydrogenation of p-nitrophenol.