Synergistic Sintering of Lignite Fly Ash and Steelmaking Residues towards Sustainable Compacted Ceramics

The development of value-added ceramic materials deriving only from industrial by-products is particularly interesting from technological, economic, and environmental point of views. In this work, the synergistic sintering of ternary and binary mixtures of fly ash, steelmaking electric arc furnace dust, and ladle furnace slag for the synthesis of compacted ceramics is reported. The sintered specimens’ microstructure and mineralogical composition were characterized by SEM-EDS and XRD, respectively. Moreover, the shrinkage, apparent density, water absorption, and Vickers microhardness (HV) were investigated at different sintering temperatures and raw material compositions. The characterization of the sintered compacts revealed the successful consolidation of the ceramic microstructures. According to the experimental findings, the ceramics obtained from fly ash/steel dust mixtures exhibited enhanced properties compared to the other mixtures tested. Moreover, the processing temperature affected the final properties of the produced ceramics. Specifically, a 407% HV increase for EAFD and a 2221% increase for the FA-EAFD mixture were recorded, by increasing the sintering temperature from 1050 to 1150°C. Likewise, a 972% shrinkage increase for EAFD and a 577% shrinkage increase for the FA-EAFD mixture were recorded, by increasing the sintering temperature from 1050 to 1150°C. The research results aim at shedding more light on the development of sustainable sintered ceramics from secondary industrial resources towards circular economy

The Effect of WO3 Modification of ZrO2 Support on the Ni-Catalyzed Dry Reforming of Biogas Reaction for Syngas Production

The time-on-stream catalytic performance and stability of 8 wt. % Ni catalyst supported on two commercially available catalytic supports, ZrO2 and 15 wt.% WO3-ZrO2, was investigated under the biogas dry reforming reaction for syngas production, at 750°C and a biogas quality equal to CH4/CO2 = 1.5, that represents a common concentration of real biogas. A number of analytical techniques such as N2 adsorption/desorption (BET method), XRD, H2-TPR, NH3- and CO2-TPD, SEM, ICP, thermal analysis (TGA/DTG) and Raman spectroscopy were used in order to determine textural, structural and other physicochemical properties of the catalytic materials, and the type of carbon deposited on the catalytic surface of spent samples. These techniques were used in an attempt to understand better the effects of WO3-induced modifications on the catalyst morphology, physicochemical properties and catalytic performance. Although Ni dispersion and reducibility characteristics were found superior on the modified Ni/WZr sample than that on Ni/Zr, its dry reforming of methane (DRM) performance was inferior; a result attributed to the enhanced acidity and complete loss of the basicity recorded on this catalyst, an effect that competes and finally overshadows the benefits of the other superior properties. Raman studies revealed that the degree of graphitization decreases with the insertion of WO3 in the crystalline structure of the ZrO2 support, as the ID/IG peak intensity ratio is 1.03 for the Ni/Zr and 1.29 for the Ni/WZr catalyst