Preparation of a new high-efficiency resin deodorant from coal gasification fine slag and its application in the removal of volatile organic compounds in polypropylene composites

Abstract Deodorizing materials are often restricted from large-scale industrial production due to the high preparation cost. By utilizing the simple acid leaching technology, this study made use of the coal gasification fine slag (FS) as raw material to prepare a cost effective FS-based deodorant (FSD) with a specific surface area of 393 m2 g−1 and a pore volume of 0.405 cm3  g−1. The propane adsorption test on FSD showed the maximum adsorption capacity to be as high as 121.61 mg g−1 at 273 K. The partition coefficient values at 10% and 100% breakthrough (BT) for FSD to adsorb propane were 1.5 × 10−3 and 3.2 × 10−4 mol kg−1 Pa−1, respectively. Furthermore, the FSD was applied in the removal of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) pollutants from polypropylene resin (PP). It showed that the deodorizing effect of the FSD was nearly three times as good as the commonly used zeolite deodorants, which was able to decrease 50 percent of the VOCs volatilization amount in PP resin. Moreover, the FSD can better strengthen the mechanical properties of PP resin. This work provides a new method for the industrial production of deodorants as well as a new direction for the recycle of coal gasification wastes.