Conversion of Fly Ash into Mesoporous Aluminosilicate

Abstract

Mesoporous aluminosilicate in the hexagonal phase (MCM-41) has been synthesized from fused fly ash solutions and cationic cetyltrimethylammonium bromide (CTAB) surfactants. We provide direct evidence that an MCM-41 aluminosilicate with a homogeneous chemical composition of Si/Al = 13.4 can be prepared with cationic surfactant. Our results indicate that coal combustion byproducts can be utilized for producing mesoporous molecular sieves even though they contain significant amounts of impurities.