Preparation and experimental dust suppression performance characterization of a novel guar gum-modification-based environmentally-friendly degradable dust suppressant

To address the coal dust pollution issue associated with coal mines and further improve the dust suppression performance of dust suppressants, the present study first uses Guar gum (GG), a widely available pollution-free natural polymer, as the main ingredient to produce modified Guar gum -GGTCS by chemically modifying its –OH functional group, followed by employing infrared spectroscopy and thermogravimetric analysis to characterize the chemical structure and thermal stability of GG and its modified product GGTCS; subsequently, the modified product GGTCS is used as the primary raw material, which is mixed with certain wetting and water retention agents so as to develop an environmentally-friendly degradable dust suppressant with decent dust suppression performance. The optimal formula for preparing this environmentally-friendly dust suppressant is determined as: 0.8% GGTCS +1.5% glycerol (GLY) + 0.1% sodium dodecyl benzene sulfonate (SDBS) + 0.02% fatty alcohol polyoxyethylene ether (AEO); the high-resolution Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) is employed to observe the solidified film on the coal powder surface before and after the treatment of dust suppressant. A digital display electronic universal testing machine is adopted to measure the maximum pressure the solidified film can withstand before being crushed (29 kPa), and a test is run to assess the degradability of the newly developed degradable dust suppressant. The test results indicate that the newly developed hybrid dust suppressant has decent water retention, hardening, cementing, anti-compression, and degradability characteristics, which can offer significant economic, environmental, and social benefits to the dust control field.