Journal of Materials Research and Technology (Mar 2023)
Value-added utilization of coal fly ash in polymeric composite decking boards
Abstract
The value-added utilization of coal fly ash (CFA) remains a major challenge worldwide, as tens of millions of tons CFA are stockpiled or landfilled per year in China along, leading to a waste of resources and environmental pollution. Herein, a facile, environmentally friendly, and value-added strategy of combining modified CFA with polyvinyl chloride (PVC) to form CFA/PVC composites, was adopted to effectively solve the problems caused by the utilization of coal resources. In this process, the composites were prepared by hot-mixing CFA with aluminate coupling agent, PVC and additives, followed by extrusion, cooling, shaping, traction, and cutting. The resulting material with excellent mechanical properties (static bending strength, tensile strength, and hardness are 34.9 MPa, 17.1 MPa, and HRR 103, respectively) was successfully utilized as the CFA-plastic composites decking boards (CFA/PVC composites). Compared with the conventional materials for this use, our material exhibited comparable performance but is more attractive from both environmental and economical point of view. More importantly, this strategy reduces the cost for production of decking boards by 10–20%, as the process is rather simple and robust, it was industrialized.